Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest: The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia Chase F. Robinson Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 221 pages. Perhaps one would not expect a history of “Islamic rule” in the seventh and eighth centuries in what is now the Middle East to illuminate any contem- porary debate on Islam, in particular about whether there is an innate civi- lizational clash between it and the (Christian) West. And yet this modest study manages to do that, if only tangentially and coincidentally, and if read with some reservations. Cambridge historians are renowned for their preoccupation with elites, generally of provinces far removed from the centers of power, and hence their single-minded focus on the “politics of notables” of relatively minor localities. From such provincial concerns, however, emerge more universal claims about, for instance, the nature of British colonial rule in India or of Islamic rule in the Middle Ages. Chase Robinson, following this tradition, assesses – as “critic and architect” – the changing status of Christian and Muslim elites following the Muslim conquest of northern Mesopotamia. Three themes are implicit: the interrelationship of history and historiog- raphy, the effects of the Muslim conquest, and the nature of Islam. Thus, I will review it thematically as well. I should point out that I engage his work as a generalist, not as a historian, and that I am interested not so much in his retelling of events as in the political meanings with which he endows them. (Re)writing History. To reconstruct a past about which there is such a dearth of primary period sources is at best hazardous. For one, where docu- ments such as conquest treaties exist, they have little truth-value, says Robinson. He thus specifies that he is concerned less with their accuracy than with how they were perceived to have governed relations between local Muslims/imperial authorities, on the one hand, and Christians on the other. For another, conquest history in fact “describes post-conquest history.” Thus the “conquest past” is a re-presentation of events from a post-conquest pre- sent, an exercise in which Christians and Muslims had an equal stake since the “conquest past could serve to underpin [their] authority alike.” Historians then must disentangle events from their own narration, or at least recognize the ways in which recording events also reframes them. Fortunately for him, says Robinson, his work was enabled by that of al- Azdi, a tenth-century Muslim historian. However, even as he admits that Book Reviews 137 writing “a history of Mosul might fairly be called re-writing al-Azdi,” Robinson suggests that his rewriting gives al-Azdi’s work (and Muslim his- toriography of that period generally) the political meanings that it otherwise lacks. Out of these modest, even inauspicious, beginnings – concerned less with the “truth” of matters than with perceptual realities and reliant on nar- ratives ostensibly devoid of political meanings – nonetheless emerges a self-confident tale about “Islamic rule.” Muslim Conquest/Rule. It is not until chapter 2 that Robinson clarifies that “what I have called ‘Islamic rule’ is little more than a trope.” But he never explains why this is the case, leaving one to assume that Islamic and Muslim rule are identical, which of course they are not, unless one assumes that everything Muslims do is, by definition, “Islamic.” In any event, in his telling, “Islamic rule” was rather benign for Christians, despite Christian apocalyptics: it allowed urban notables to aug- ment their power and its “primary beneficiary” was the Church, for Muslims ended Byzantine control and were indifferent to (on a more generous read- ing, tolerant of) Christian beliefs. As a result, the Church gained “autonomy from the state, but it lost its only rival (also the state) for the services of priv- ileged families. The result was a hardy and durable Christian identity that was symbolised by Church authorities, many of whom wrote their commu- nity’s past.” Church building proceeded apace in the seventh century, which saw the “birth of a vibrant church and monastic culture.” Only after the Abbasids imposed their rule in the mid-eighth century did “some restrictions began to appear.” As for the conquest itself, Robinson notes that some Christian accounts say that the Christians “willingly handed their city [Mosul] to the Muslims” and that there is no “example of detailed battle narrative” by Christian writ- ers; instead, there are “examples of negotiated settlement.” However, instead of considering this a negation of western stereotypes of Islam being spread by the sword, he ascribes it to the Christian desire for “harmonious coexistence” with the Muslims. What, then, of Christian apocalyptic texts condemning Islam? Their source, according to Robinson, is the anxiety generated by “an unprece- dented taxation regime” that made conversion attractive and so threatened the Church’s authority. Thus, for Christians, it was “taxation that signalled Islamic rule,” and some prelates reacted by calling “for a last world emper- or to protect Christianity.” But later, Robinson admits that taxation was “as inefficient in asserting claims of sovereignty (Christians levied taxes on Christians, and appeals for relief were made to Christian authorities) as it 138 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 20:1 was in extracting resources.” If this is so, his explanation of Christian apoc- alyptics becomes less persuasive. What interests me most about Robinson’s account is its failure to yield any evidence that Muslims persecuted Christians, anything that suggests an irrevocable “clash” between them, or even that early Muslim wars were wars of religion, notwithstanding individual Muslim claims of acting as God’s agents and Robinson’s own views about violence in Islam. Indeed, it is on the last score that he is on the weakest grounds. (Re)presenting Islam. Among Robinson’s observations about Islam is his reference to “Muhammad’s (apparent) marriage of ethnicity and creed” and his claim that the caliphs’ reluctance to promote “the most powerful of all methods of political integration – conversion – says more about the extraor- dinary persuasiveness of Muhammad’s fusion of ethnicity and monotheism than it does about their enthusiasm for empire building.” Clearly, if Robinson knew anything about Islam, he would know that Islam delinked monotheism from race, ethnicity, culture, bloodlines, and so on, by defining the commu- nity (ummah) in terms simply of a distinctive articulation of faith. More egregiously, he asserts that “Islam seems to have meant jihad and conquest led by commanders and caliphs, themselves instruments of God’s providential will” and that God has made “sacral violence ... incumbent upon all Muslims.” This is not just shoddy and uninformed scholarship, but is mis- guided in its attribution to God and Islam of the violence that Muslims thought fit to commit historically. The Qur’an does not teach jihad as war, but permits only qital (fighting) to prevent religious persecution, not for con- quest, expansion, or political aggrandizement. Even the classical Muslim doctrine of jihad does not advocate such wars. Further, the wars discussed were inter-Muslim civil wars, not wars to force Islam on non-Muslims. Thus they hardly qualify as holy wars (a term he uses) or as “sacral violence.” Muslims did fight wars of conquest and later on re-presented them as reli- gious wars, but as Robinson himself notes of the conquest, its re-presentation in “theocratic terms” was a (later) rationalization. In some ways, little has changed since the seventh century, at least inso- far as the (re)interpretation of the conquest past is concerned. Now, as before, both Muslims and Christians remain invested in interpreting this past because it continues to underpin their authority. But today, some of us have the hubris of believing that Muslims could only record their past, not endow it with political meaning. Thus, non-Muslim historians must tell us what was important about it and why. As always, Muslims are to be ventriloquized by non-Muslims. Book Reviews 139 Even so, and notwithstanding its misrepresentations of Islam and its imperialist claims to authoritative meaning-making, Robinson’s history reminds us of an era during which Muslims and Christians lived together and, for the most part, harmoniously. This is no mean lesson at a time, fol- lowing 9/11, of revived Christian apocalyptics as well as the ill-advised clamor by some Muslims for a jihad against the West. Asma Barlas Associate Professor and Chair of Politics Ithaca College Ithaca, New York 140 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 20:1