136 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 20:2 

Modernity and Culture: From the 

Me diterranean to the Indian Ocean 

Leila Tarazi Fawaz and C. A. Bayly, eds. 
New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 410 pages. 

This book contains the output from a series of discussions leading to an 
American Social Science Research Council (SSRC) conference in Aix-en­

Provence, France in September 1998. The 18 essays address some aspects 

of the history of the Mediterranean-Middle East and Indian Ocean-South 

Asian areas between the 1890s and 1920s, when modernity and colonial­
ism struck these areas. Despite the lack of a precise definition of moder ­

nity, the contributors unravel how the advent of "European" modernity in 

transportation, military power, media, and imperialistic or colonial ten­

dency shaped these areas' culture and social structures. 
Many of the essays focus upon eighteenth- and nineteenth-century 

urban areas in port cities and important cities like Izmir, Haifa, Alexandria, 

Cairo, Basra, and Istanbul. This alludes to the fact that the cosmopolitan 







Book Reviews 139 

Jalal's essay deepens Bayly's line of argument by showing the dichot­
omy of views among the English over Indian Muslims in the same period 

(e.g., Muslims as "rebels" versus Muslims as "neutral"). Jalal shows that 
Muslims were perceived in a loyalty/disloyalty continuum in such a way 
that they had to choose between membership in Islam's universal commu­
nity and a sense of belonging to their local community and land of origin: 

India. Bayly and Jalal's essays represent a departure from the conventional 
analysis of using only the victim's viewpoints to understand representa ­
tional issues in colonial societies. Both essays show that even the non­
victim factors (e.g., Englishmen's view as a source of inspiration for 

nationalism movements and specific colonial policy favoring Muslims in 
India) would contribute to the variegated continuity and change in these 
colonial societies of the late nineteenth century. 

This book is valuable for researchers who need an alternative read ­

ing of what transpired in Muslim societies, especially during the tumul­
tuous period of colonial expansion from the sixteenth century onwards. 
Rather than seeing "decline" or "crisis" as defining the Muslim fate, 

readers may use a much more balanced analytical category of "adapta ­

tion" and "change" as defining a specific Muslim response to colonial 
encroachment. 

Hasnan Hakim 

Candidate, Master of Human Science 
International Islamic University Malaysia 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia