Faith & Power: The Politics of Islam

By Edward Mortimer. New York: Random House, 1982. 432 pages. List: $7.95; AET: & 5.95 for one, $7.95 for two.

Reviewed by David Wemple

Until the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 ascension to power in Iran the Muslim world had been, to all but a few scholars and political analysts, largely out of sight and out of mind. The Islamic revolution changed all of that in an instant. Suddenly, "Islam" was thrown onto the world stage with an urgency that was both frightening and unavoidable.

Although the author was a Middle East correspondent for the London Times when the book was written, he was still, by his own admission, "naive" about Islam. He envisioned it as something like Roman Catholicism: a set of creeds and beliefs that neatly quantified the subject, allowing it to be antiseptically and definitively studied. Instead he, discovered that Islam was, among other things, a model of society, a way of life, a "secular religion," and even "much more than a religion." It was "everywhere and nowhere. " If we fail to appreciate this central fact, he writes, we are condemned to misunderstand, perhaps with tragic consequences, not only Islam, but those societies which profess its ideals.

Rather than focusing on Islam's tenets, Mortimer has looked at what Muslims in six societies think, do and say. He can, he writes, only define Islam as "the religion of the Muslims, and a Muslim, for me, is simply one who calls himself that."

In each of the examples (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, the Soviet Union, and the Levant/Nile valley), the author has examined Islam's response to the West's political and military ascendancy and its adaptation to each society's unique characteristics.

Saudi Arabia, for example, was founded as a nation-state at a time when there had been minimal contact with the West. The extremely conservative rulers of the Kingdom took their cue from Arabian society's basic nature. In a culture where the very concept of a "secular state"—relegating religious life and the workaday world to separate spheres—was alien, the nation's ruler was to become a secular king, not a religious leader (e.g., imam or ayatollah). Nevertheless, the legitimacy of Saudi kings has rested in large measure upon their respect for Islam's religious scholars, the Vama.

Turkey, on the other hand, imposed a purely secular state in the 1920s upon a population that was almost entirely Muslim. Turkey has kept a foot in either world, strengthening ties with the Muslim world while, at the same time, remaining within that most Western of alliances, NATO. Pakistan, by contrast, adamantly rejected India's multi-confessional and secular character in 1947, when it established itself as an avowedly Islamic nation-state.

According to Mortimer, Arab nationalism in the Levant/Nile valley is still wavering in its commitment to any of these three models of adaptation. The region, he believes, oscillates between a "secular nationalism" which emphasizes the commonality of all those who speak Arabic, and an "Islamic nationalism" which sees Arabs as the rightful leaders of an Islamic revival.

As for the position of Soviet Muslims, the author suggests that, despite what many in the West may want to believe, it is possible that Moscow had not brutally subjugated its Muslims in any classic colonial manner. Rhetoric about "self-determination" aside, he sees Moscow as having worked hard to integrate Muslims into the larger culture while making impressive efforts to preserve their cultural heritage.

The Islamic revolution in Iran, while undoubtedly nationalistic to many, was largely "a revolt of Iranian Muslims against non-Muslim foreigners. " Like the Bolshevik revolution, it claimed to give voice to millions who were of other nationalities. The obvious hope of many Iranians was to rid themselves of "Western" influence and establish an authentic and revitalized Islamic society, albeit with a Persian face.

The Question of "Fundamentalism"

What the West calls "fundamentalism" among Muslims may not be all that different from what the same observers describe as "fundamentalism" among Christians and Jews. The reference is to a defense mechanism by those who feel threatened and disoriented by rapid change. In every Muslim nation which Mortimer examined, he tells us that what he specifically noted was a clinging to the traditional form of Islam.

Tradition, perhaps as much as anything else, is central to Islam. Regardless of the images upon which Western media have focused, those traditions include tolerance, freedom and humane treatment, not to mention a deep respect for rational thought and education. If the custom of veiling for women strikes many in the West as primitive, Mortimer maintains that such customs were not dictated by the Qur'an, but were social customs in some societies long before the advent of Islam.

The author of Faith & Power finishes where he began, by asking "What is Islam?" Because the history of each society has been crucial to the specific adaptations by Islam to that culture, Mortimer concludes that there simply is no "Islam" as such. Rather, there are many "Islams, " each corresponding to a society's history and characteristics.

Nor do the tenets of Islam necessarily provide for a single, monolithic edifice. Even the literalists may go in different directions when studying the hadith, the record of words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions. When confronted with various interpretations and applying them to changing situations, many Islams do, indeed, emerge.

Mortimer sees within Islam an admirable capacity for adaptation to many circumstances. If Islam still strikes some as repressive and "backward," the author believes such images are due in no small part to the domination and cultural aggressiveness which Muslims have long suffered at the hands of the West.

One consequence of this history has been that Muslims have seen threats to the "true faith" as coming not from within the Muslim community, but from non-Muslim (i.e., Western) sources. "The Muslims who have advocated change," the author writes, "even when they have done so as Muslims using a purely Islamic vocabulary, have been perceived—usually with some degree of justice—as advocates of Westernization."

Faith & Power offers a broad and penetrating view of "Islam" and Muslim societies that won't permit the reader to look at the subject in the same way ever again. Islamic culture, he concludes, provides the form and vocabulary of politics.

It is time, we are told, to focus less on "Islam" as a geopolitical force and more on what Muslims themselves think, say and do.

David Wemple is a writer from Albany, NY, who is concerned with Middle East affairs.