Book Reviews 545 Book Review m Ummah or Nation: Identity Crisis in Contemporary Muslim Society By Abdullah al-Ahsan. Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foun­ dation, 1992/1413, 158 pp. The interaction of societies and worldviews is one of the great themes of modem world history. Abdullah al-Ahsan makes an important contri­ bution to the explanation and W1derstanding of these interactions in the context of the Islamic world. In particular, he concentrates on the issues of ultimate sociopolitical identity and how it is affected by the attitudes and beliefs of modem Muslims: the dual loyalty to "nation" and to the greater Islamic commnity (ummah). This book opens with a discussion of the term "um.mah" and its con­ ceptual development in Islamic history. Then it addresses the develop­ ment of nationalism in the modem world, particularly during the colonial era in Turkey, Egypt, and South Asia, and leading to "the identity crisis of the modem Muslim." Al-Ahsan concludes with a discussion of contem­ porary transnational Muslim organizations, giving special attention to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (01 C), which he describes as both a potentially ummatic entity and an organization of nation-states. "The problematic relationship between European secular thought and traditional Islamic ideas has created an identity crisis in contemporary Muslim society" (p. 145), al-Ahsan says. This is not just a matter of the coexistence of different identities within an individual or group, which is natural; rather it involves defining a Muslim's "supreme loyalty." For such a loyalty to be successful it should "be strong enough to generate a sense of unity among its adherents and at the same time be flexible enough to accommodate other identities within its fold" (p. 146). This is a matter of individual identity and "an adherent should have the freedom 546 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 0 4 of choice in adopting the ideology of his supreme loyalty. Any predetermined factor weakens an ideology" (p. 146). Within this framework, al-Ahsan argues that nationalism, the identity concept created by European secular thought, is a weak foundation for a supreme loyalty and does not work well even in the West. "The idea of nationalism has not been able to develop any mechanism to maintain an organic relationship between freedom, individual responsibility and morality" @. 147). Indeed, "with the development of nationalism the Is- lamic ummah identity has lost the status of supreme loyalty of Muslims" because "Muslims themselves have not been able to adjust to the develop- ments and discoveries in Europe" (pp. 148-9). Fundamental Islamic values coflsfitute an effective basis for a su- preme urnrnatic loyalty in the contempomry world that would include national identity within a hietatchy of other secular identities. To define and achieve this will, al-Ahsan says, q u i r e the active involvement of Muslim intellectuals who "must decide about their supreme loyalty - whether it lies with the Islamic ummah identity or the ideas of European civilization" @. 152). This basic argument is at best persuasive but it also raises questions. There is an emphasis on the importance of older western sowes of analysis and conceptualizations of key ideas. In particular, there is an im- plicit assumption that classical western definitions remain in control. Al-Ahsan correctly notes the importance of Hans Kohn in the develop- ment of the western conceptualizations of nationalism (pp. 3 1-32). How- ever, he ends his discussion of the evolution of the western understanding of nationalism with scholats like Rupert Emerson and Karl Deutsch, who are identified as true successors to Kohn but who were major scholars of the 1950s and 1960s and not later. After Deutsch and Emerson, significant new appmaches to the under- standing of nationalism emerged. These have involved more than simple revisionism and, in fact, reflect a whole new framework of analysis or paradigm shifts. The Kohn tradition viewed "nations" as entities essen- tially fured in na- and based on "primordial" characteristics-somehow always there, waiting to be awakened and mobilized. New conceptualiza- tions view national identities as products of individual and gmup world- views and petceptions. A "nation" here is a construct built on the basis of beliefs and self-perceptions; the n a t w of "nationalism" changes gmtly as these beliefs and self-perceptions change. Anderson' claims that 'Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: RefIections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Versq 1991), p. 4. See also E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations Md Nat'onalisln since 1780 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Book Reviews both Marxist and liberal theory have become etiolated in a late Ptolemaic effort to 'save the phenomena'; and ... a reorientation of perspective in, as it were, a Copernican spirit is urgently required. My [Anderson's] point of departure is that nationality ... nation-nes.s, as well as nationalism, are cultural artefacts of a particular kind. 547 Al-Ahsan tends to accept the conceptualization of "nation" and "na­ tionalism" used in the Kohn tradition of scholarship. The result is a some­ what static sense of what a nation is and how it interacts with the Mus­ lim's perception of ummah and the modem Muslim's sense of national identity. The evolution of perceptions of national identities from Jamal al Din to the OIC, for example, might be more persuasively presented in the terminology of Anderson than of Kohn. Current conceptualizations give support to al-Ahsan's basic point about the fundamental competition between national-identity and ummah­ identity, since both can be seen as matters relating to fundamental beliefs and self-perceptions. Viewed as a "primordial" unit, a nation is a natural basis for a political and societal identity. However, "nation" seen as a "cultural artefact" gives recognition that it is a value-laden concept and is likely, in the modem context, to conflict with the fundamental values represented by the ummatic identify of believers. These comments are offered not as a criticism of this thought­ provoking and important work, but rather as a suggestion for a next step in the analysis of the "identity crisis in contemporary Muslim society." This book will be of help to all who are interested in modern Muslim his­ tory and to non-Muslim scholars of modem political theory. John Obert Voll University of New Hampshire Durham, New Hampshire