The Political Language of Islam

by Bernard Lewis

Book Overview

What does jihad really mean? What is the Muslim conception of law? What is Islam's stance toward unbelievers? Probing literary and historical sources, Bernard Lewis traces the development of Islamic political language from the time of the Prophet to the present. His analysis of documents written in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish illuminates differences between Muslim political thinking and Western political theory, and clarifies the perception,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226476936
• ISBN13: 9780226476933
• Release Date: June 1991
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

The Political Language of Islam (Emergent Literatures)

Anything Lewis writes is worth reading (and I have at least 5 of his works). I've already read this one & plan to re-read it immediately. It is well worth it for anyone who wants to understand a different mind set. The second time around, I plan to take notes.

Good short book on the Politics of Islam

This book focuses on the political aspects of Islamic thought from the time of the Prophet to present time. It addresses Islamic law (Fiqh), the history of Islamic rulers (and the ruled), and revolution. The book is presented primarily (although not entirely) from a Sunni perspective. The book is extremely well documented. There are 116 pages of text in the main body of the book and 41 pages of notes supporting those 116 pages! The book is a great starting point for research in the politics of Islam.

Distilling the Essence of Islam Linguistically

This book is very unlike Bernard Lewis' other writing on Islam. "What Went Wrong" is much more accessible to the general reader and I recommend it highly. If, however, you have read most of Professor Lewis' work, and want to continue through his opus, then this will be your cup of tea. The book's title cannot be taken too literally; the subject is the derivation and meaning of words in the major Middle Eastern languages. The bulk of the book consists of his contrasting the usage of Islamic vocabularies with the counterpart words in English, and occassionally, Romance languages. It is fascinating, but even for a reader interested in linguistics, it becomes a blur. The Arabic ( both classic and modern), Turkish, Iranian (and often Hebrew) words flash by. With Islam in the news so much these days, the general reader will recognize some of them, such as "sadr," as in Sadr City, the slum in Baghdad. It turns out that the Arabic word means "chest" literally, but has come to mean centrality, leadership, command. In Turkish it is part of the Grand Vizier's title. It is true, too, that the reader will learn much about the Qur'an, the Traditions of the Prophet, and of sharia, the Muslim law. For instance, since the principal function of government is to enable the individual Muslim to lead a good Muslim life, there is no thought of the separation of church and state. Also, since there is no clerical bureaucracy, there is no formal theocracy, although most Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammed was the giver of all law. It is a brief 116 page book, and the notes and index comprise a third of its volume. Notwithstanding my admiration of Professor Lewis, I cannot recommend this book to any but Islamic-language speaking people. With their strange, and meaningless, diacritical marks, the foreign words cannot be held in memory once the page is turned, and the import of the exposition is lost. If you wondered why a celebrated Princeton Professor's book was published by the University of Chicago, it is because it is based on a series of lectures sponsored by the University of Chicago back in 1986. The book was published two years later, and is still in print. You may also be surprised to see that half of the back cover encomiums are from reviewers with Arabic names. This is because there is not one critical, cynical, or condecending word against Islam. It is a throroughly neutral treatment of a topic which was twenty years ahead of its time. Keep in mind, too, that these chapters were written separately, although with a unifying theme. The result is that some chapters are less "linguistically intensive" than others. For instance, the chapter titled "War and Peace" is a good read on the fundamentals of jihad, and is less of an Arabic vocabulary study than the other chapters are. If you have time for only one chapter, this is it.

A Linguistic Approach

In The Political Language of Islam, Bernard Lewis attempts to trace the development of the political language of Islam from the Mohammedan Era, through the transformation of the religio-political discourse in modern times, to the present day. An eminent scholar of the Middle East and a professor at Princeton University, Lewis, presents an analysis of the discrepancies between Islamic and Western political thought. The book is based on his Exxon Foundation Lectures delivered at the University of Chicago in 1986. In the first chapter of the book Lewis explains the differences between Islamic and Western political terms. He discusses the meanings and origins of words and compares them to corresponding terms in Western languages. He dwells on various metaphors and images, which reflect the traditional, social and political distinctions between Islamic and Western cultures. Despite these differences, Lewis says, there exist also resemblances between the two culturally different terminologies, due to the fact that the individuals of the two domains live in the same environment. He further adds that some of the similarities may be the result of cultural influences and borrowings. In the following chapters Lewis introduces an account of the issues relating to the state and political authority in the Muslim world. He elaborates on relations, particularly of the ruler and the ruled, people and the state, obedience and rebellion, rights and duties, justice and oppression and legitimacy and illegitimacy. He examines how certain political elements were perceived and practiced differently in various parts of the "Islamic bloc". Lewis also provides an informative synopsis of the political vocabulary of the Arabic language compared to Turkish and Persian expressions, followed by an analysis of their meanings, origins and changes in time. The last chapters of the book are devoted to a discussion on war and peace, in which one can find a strong connection to the political climate of the present. Proving against the common belief, Lewis argues that "classic Arabic usage has no term corresponding to the concept of holy war." Therefore, the word "jihad" does not exist in Arabic language as it is perceived today. Its literal meaning connotes "strive" and "effort." But Lewis also makes it clear that "unceasingly to convert or at least subjugate those who have not" is an obligation imposed by God on all Muslims. "It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state." Lewis asserts that with an apostate being the worst enemy, rebels, bandits and apostates are enemies against whom it was legitimate to wage war. Yet according to some Muslim teachings the war did not have to be in the military sense, the jihad could be understood in moral and spiritual terms. An ambiguity as such in Islamic thought among the Muslims reflects contested interpretations of the tenets of political Is

A Work of First Class Scholarship

Lewis's works are known for their depth of analysis while simultaneously being presented with a simple elegance that makes them approachable to those of us who are not Arabists or Islamicists. In this work he expounds on the language of political discourse in Arabia, Persia, Turkey and Islamic lands in general. Political vocabulary more or less confines and defines the range of this discourse so understanding the language is not mere semantics but indeed critical to the understanding of the development of Islamic political thought.This short book (116 pages plus 52 pages of detailed notes and references, including an index) traces the etymology behind key political concepts in Islam. If you are an informed reader of current Mideast events encountering words like jihad, ayatollah, imam, shaykh, and fatwa and have a curiosity as to what these words are all about, under what context did they originally appear, and why they have contemporary relevance, you will find this unique volume hard to put down. The book is about the concept behind the word and its historical development more so than philological aspects, although the latter is also well covered. Originally published in 1988, an update reflecting the current state of affairs would be welcome. For example Islamic fundamentalists describe modern society as "jahili," a term originally used as a descriptor of Arabia before the time of the Prophet and related to the Arabic word for ignorance, "jahiliyya." Lewis' thoughts on how Muslims have dealt with attempting to end godless jahiliyya in the past and how it might apply to militant Islam today would have particular relevance as we try to understand the motivations behind the events of September 11th.