554 The American Journal of Islamic Social S ience Vol. 8. o. 3. 1991 Book Review Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle East By Emmanuel Sivan and Menachem Friedman (eds.). Albany: State University of New York, 1990, 244 pp. The editor of this b ok eek to explain to the r ader the complex rea ons for the undeniable phenomenon of religiou radicali min the contemporary Middle Ea t. According to Sivan, the ta1ting point of uch an undertaking i the recognition that religious radicali m encompa e both thought and action and that it entails the ·'rejection" of all other nonindigenou value and culture . Faced with the challenge of modernity, the religiou radicals' respon e ha been "e ces ive or "extremi t' (terms which are used interchangeably throughout the book with "radi al"). The editor have employed a comparative m thod, a six other (al o I raeli) cholar were a ed to join them in . tudying p cific I Jamie and Jewi h movements which featured ome form of radicali m. They cho the e two religion becau e, in their opinion, they both share a ba ic affinity (i.e., the de ire to hape human behavior) and, le convincingly, becau e they wanted to pre erve the 'unity of pace," meaning the Middle East. One hould not forget, however, that there are al o radical Chri tian group in the area. The major I Jamie group tudied are the pro-Iranian Gaza-ba ed Jihad the Shi'i oppo ition in Iraq and Iranian pilgrims, whom they call "Khomeini' Me enger ." The Jewish groups studied are Gu h Emunim, eturei Karta, and the late Meir Kahan 's Kach party. While the editor acknowledge the difficulty of propo ing a comparative framework for the analy i of religiou extremi m, they do ugge t ome outlines. The main the is i that the e ential impul e hared by all movements de crib ct here might be termed, following aid A. Arjomand, 'revolutionary traditionali m'; that i , a political radicalism born out fa religiou tradition, which tran cend that tradition in an attempt to pre erve it authenticity in the face of contemporary challenges." 1 Every extremist movem nt ha revived a "myth' from its tradition which ha then served a a guiding principl for it truggle of preservation against the force of mod rnity. For example, the attitude of th eturei Karta and the Gu h Emunim toward the tate of I rael come from their interpretation of the tradition concerning redemption. 1 Emrnanuel ivan and Menachem Friedman, eds., Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle &m (Albany: State University of New York, 1990), 3. The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 8, No. 3, 1991 555 For the first group, Jews are to remain in exile until God performs the miracle of redemption. The establishment of Israel is therefore an antimessianic and hopeless project, and members of this group accordingly detach themselves from Israeli society and politics. The second movement believes that establishing the state of Israel will hasten the process of redemption and the arrival of the Messiah. While both Sunni and Shi‘i radicals share the same view regarding the challenge of modernity and its cure, namely that “the existing regimes must be delegitimized,”* each group has turned to a different historical “myth.” Shi‘i radicals have revived both the revolution of Husayn, the Prophet’s grandson, against corrupt and illegitimate authority and the subsequent celebration of ‘khiirii’. Sunni extremists have turned to what one of the authors terms “the neo-Hanbalite school” founded by Ibn Taymiyah, who taught that rebellion is legitimate under specific conditions. Thus it was natural, according to these authors, that the “father” of Sunni extremists, Sayyid Qutb, relied heavily on Ibn Taym-yah’s teachings. Although using the concept of “revolutionary traditionalism” to analyze religious radicalism or extremism may sound plausible, it does not explain why millions of people in the Middle East are turning to religion, especially to Islam. The classic Western explanation has been that this is a reaction to the challenges of modernity, an assertion based on the neo-orientalist school of Middle Eastern studies which, like its predecessor orientalism, fails to understand the nature of Islam and its interaction with the social process in Muslim society. Despite this interpretation’s dominance in Western literature, two other competing views have emerged: one from sympathetic observers of Islam like John Esposito, and the other from the Islamists themselves3 As for the first explanation, it will continue to misrepresent the Islamic resurgence as long as it does not understand Esposito’s analysis of Islam as “faith in history,” “the product of a dynamic changing process in which the word of revelation is mediated through human discourse in response to specific socio-historical ~ontexts.”~ The four authors concerned with Islamic radicalism also overemphasize the Sunni-SWi rift. This is a widespread trend in Israeli Arabology, but it does not contribute very much to the explanation of extremism within Muslim society. There are several other shortcomings. First, although some of the authors are careful about making generalizations, such as Ravitzky who distinguishes %id., 41. 3F0r example, see Abdelwahab El-Affendi, TumbiS Revolution: Islam and Power in the 4J0hn Esposito, “1989 Presidential Address: The Study of Islam: Challenges and Prospects.’’ Sudan (London: Grey Seal, 1990). MESA Bulletin 24 (1990): 2 . 556 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 8, No. 3, 1991 between radical Jewish elements and what he calls “more moderate religious trends” (chapter one), Sivan takes the other extreme by applying his findings to almost all Sunni groups in the Middle East. When he talks about the impact of Sunni groups on the Middle East’s political and social processes, the term “Sunni extremists” is expanded to cover movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria, and the Arab Gulf state^.^ It is true that there are extremist groups in some countries (i.e., Egypt’s a1 Takfir wa a1 Hijrah) and some extremist individuals or tendencies in the mainstream movements of other countries, but to call all of them “extremist” is not acceptable in a scholarly work. For example, in chapter six Yiisuf a1 QaracjSwi is said to have a great influence on one of the radical groups. The fact that he, along with other scholars in the mainstream movements, has battled Sunni extremists is nowhere mentioned. Second, there is the related issue of comparability. It is legitimate to carry out a cross-religious comparison, but one first has to establish that the objects are indeed comparable. If we want to compare Islamic and Jewish extremist movements, we first have to define what constitutes extremism in each tradition. If we accept that “the essence of extremism is excess,” we should look at the mainstream or moderate followers of each tradition in order to measure extremism - unless we measure the supposed extremism of Islamic groups by their position on the Arab-Israeli issue from an Israeli point of view. Thus, while it seems plausible to compare Neturei Karta with a1 Takfir wa al Hijrah, it is nonsense to put the Kach party next to the Islamic Tendency of Tunisia. Since one of the editors has already labeled most Sunni groups as extremists, the comparative method is abused from the starting premise. Third, there are numerous statements which are not accurate. To be fair, most of these inaccuracies are in the introduction and in Sivan’s chapter two. Examples are: a) “When in the 1960s modern Sunni extremists looked for a tradition to build upon they naturally turned to Ibn Taymiyya”’; b) a1 Takfir wa al Hijrah” declared its leader (who was later executed) as Mahdi (Messiah and Caliph)”6; c) “The only Sunni organization that gave some thought to the Islamic state is al-Takfir wa-1-Hijra movement in Egypt, which depicted a Caliphate headed by Shukri M ~ s t a f a ” ~ ; and d) “Sunni popular religion considers the Shi’ites heretics and not Musilm; in One Thousand and One 5Sivan and Friedman, 8-9. ”For example, see Yusuf al Qara+wi, Islamic Awkening between Rejection and Extremism ‘Sivan and Friedman, 3. %id.. 6. 91bid., 56. (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, n.d.). The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 8, No. 3, 1991 557 Nights, for instance, the term Muslim is identical with Sunni, and the Shi'ites are branded as Rafida." 10 There is also one amusing translation mistake in an endnote to chapter six. A book by al Qara9awi, al Huli:tl al Mustawridah wa Kayfa Jannat 'ala Ummatinii (sic) is translated as "Imported Solutions and the Way They Have Driven Our Nation Crazy"! Janat without stress (shaddah) means "led astray" or "destroyed," which is how al Qara9awi uses it, but with shaddah it means "to become crazy." Although its importance is exaggerated, the four chapters on Islamic radicalism do offer a rigorous analysis of the divisions between radical Shi'i and Sunni groups, how they independently developed similar assessments of the situation, and why the "ecumenistic" efforts failed to bring unity or even closeness (taqrib) between the two sects. For those interested in this topic, these chapters are valuable. Najib Ghadban City University of New York New York City, New York lOfbid., 4 7.