Book Reviews 121 

Body of Text: The Emergence of the 

Sunni Law of Ritual Purity 

Marion Holmes Katz 

Albany, New York: State University of New 
York Press, 2002. 275 pages. 

This book is perhaps the first study in English devoted to the development 
and rationale of ritual purity laws. The author, Marion Holmes Katz, a pro­

fessor at Mount Holyoke College, chooses not to write from the traditional 

Muslim or Islamic jurisprudential perspectives. Though this does not inval­
idate an argument per se, it certainly renders her premises troublesome 
from a traditional Islamic legal perspective. Katz's attempt to formulate an 

alternative interpretive methodology, however, fails due to internal incon­

sistencies in her argument as well as the prevalence of poor and often spec­
ulative reasoning.