BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article:
Scholars, Sufis and Saints: Muslim Religious Institutions Since 1500. Edited by Nikki R. Keddie.
Sayyid Jam ad-D"al-Afghānī": A Political Biography. By Nikki R. Keddie.
Kit lkhtil Us-Madhib of Qzāī Nuā b. Muāmmad. Edited with a critical introduction by S.T. Lokhand walla.
Islam in Uganda :Islamisation Through a Centralised State in Pre-Colonial Africa. By Arye Oded.
The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism. By William B. Quandt, Fuad Jaber, Ann Mosely Lesch.
Arab Politics in the Soviet Mirror. By Aryeh Yodfat.     

Sectarian identity and national identity in the Middle East

This article looks at modern sectarian (here referring to Sunni/Shi'a) identities and their interaction with nationalism in the Middle East. In doing so I make three interrelated claims: 1) the term ‘sectarianism’ is distortive and analytically counterproductive. A better understanding of modern sectarian identity requires us to jettison the term. 2) Once discarded, our focus can then shift to sectarian identity: how it is constructed, perceived, utilized and so forth. A holistic understanding of sectarian identity must recognize the multiple fields upon which it is constructed and contested. The model adopted here frames sectarian identity as simultaneously operating on four fields: doctrinal, subnational, transnational and, crucially for our purposes, the national dimension. 3) Thirdly, this article challenges the assumptions regarding national and sectarian identities in the modern Middle East. Contrary to conventional wisdom, modern sectarian identities are deeply embedded in the prism of the nation‐state and are inextricably linked to nationalism and national identity. The article will rely primarily on the example of modern Iraq but, as will be seen, the Iraqi example is significantly echoed in the cases of Bahrain, Syria and Lebanon.     

"For it shall be a witness between us" a literary reading of josh 22

ABSTRACT

Eusocial species form societies in which subordinates, which belong to an obligately sterile caste, help raise the young that dominants produce. As in any eusocial species, reproduction was strongly “skewed” in the Ancient Near East: kings assembled harems of thousands of women, and fathered hundreds of children; but their families were provisioned and protected, in part, by eunuchs. As early as 4th-millennium Uruk, “beardless” subjects waited on bearded monarchs; large numbers of eunuchs were commanding imperial armies and administering imperial palaces by Ashurbanipal's time. Assyrian emperors, on the other hand, left records of hundreds of harem governess and weavers, servants and singers; and Artaxerxes II, the Persian king, is supposed to have fathered 115 bastards, along with 3 legitimate sons. So it went in Ancient Israel and Judah. Hebrew kings from David to Zedekiah grew dependent on eunuch messengers, eunuch stewards, eunuch army commanders and eunuch palace guards—who served as workers and soldiers for their hundreds of concubines and wives, and their housefuls of daughters and sons.     

Mutual Recriminations: God and Israel in the Book of Malachi

ABSTRACT

From the time that Pfeiffer’s work on the structure of the Book of Malachi was published, scholars have divided the Book into six oracles with a common question/answer answer format. Most scholars attempt to identify the genre of the oracles and their sitz im leben according to this struc-ture. However, scholars have overlooked one basic feature connected with this format in the Book of Malachi, a feature that has significant ramifications for the understanding of the book. Examining the content of the questions and answers, we discover that they fall into two different categories, one in which the prophet rebukes the people and the people attempt to justify their actions (in the second, third, and fifth oracles), and one in which the main accusation is made by the people against God, while God justifies Himself against the people’s accusations (in the first, fourth, and sixth oracles). Having made this distinction, we can understand more clearly the principle on which the whole book is based. The oracles of Malachi reflect a breach in the covenantal rela-tionship between God and the people that is expressed through mutual accu-sations. The prophet seeks to repair this breach through a message designed to renew and strengthen the people’s feeling that God is committed to the cove-nantal relationship with Israel.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article: The Desert Bible. By Morris S. Seale. The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture. By Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar. Sayyid Ahmad. A Study of the Religious Reform Movement of Sayyid Ahmad of Rē Bareli. By Muhammad Hedayetullah. The Khilafat Movement in India, 1919-1924. By A. C. Niemeijer. History of Medieval Deccan (1295-1724), Vol. I (Mainly Political and Military Aspects). Edited by H. K. Sherwani and P. M. Joshi. New French Imperialism, 1880-1910: The Third Republic and Colonial Expansion. By James J. Cooke. The U.S.S.R. and the Middle East. Edited by Michael Confino and Shimon Shamir. Survival or Hegemony? The Foundations of Israeli Foreign Policy. By Samuel J. Roberts. Truman, The Jewish Vote and the Creation of. Israel. By John Snetsinger.     

The appearance and disappearance of Birket El-Kamar,Jaffa, Israel

ABSTRACT

The harbor of Jaffa is one of the oldest in the land of Israel and was a significant entry from the sea for the last 4000 years, from the Middle Bronze Age to the twentieth century. Birket el-Kamar was a sandy bay in the coastal strip south of modern Jaffa harbor that had been part of the harbor during various past periods, but no longer exists. Its name, meaning ‘the Moon Pool’, occurs in historical archival documents, mainly maps, from the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. This study focuses on the changing outlines of Birket el-Kamar during the last 800 years, based on recently revealed archaeological remains, and documentary evidence. It seems that in addition to the natural processes, the Ottoman fortress that was built on the natural sand strip connecting the rocks in the sea with the coast, also affected the on-going processes, through which the inner port, the central port and the north anchorage suffered higher erosion rates and the shoreline retreated eastward.