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 http://sir.sagepub.com/ Religieuses

Religion/SciencesStudies in

 http://sir.sagepub.com/content/31/2/235.citationThe online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.1177/000842980203100219

 2002 31: 235Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses Andrew Rippin

Taurus, 2001. xxiii + 128 pInstitute of Ismaili Studies, Ismaili Heritage Series, 5 London: I. B.

Debate on Reason and Authority in Medieval Islam Farouk Mitha TheComptes rendus / Review of books: Al-Ghazali and the Ismailis. A

 

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235

gious setting, drunkenness, and a select clientele for the story of feasting on the bod-

ies of Gog’s soldiers.

Given the appearance of references to marziah in what he judges to be 8th

and 6th century B.C.E. prophetic texts, McLaughlin concludes that the connec-

tion between earlier, extra-biblical references and post-biblical usage is now con-

firmed. The majority of the passages identified indicate that &dquo;drunkenness was a

major raison rl ~trP of the mnrz~~cla&dquo; (215). However, there is no uniformity among the

prophets with regard to condemning or accepting this activity and every instance

must be examined to determine its social context. The marziah house or organiza-tion was apparently an accepted institution, especially among the upper class elite,and thus could be a target for the socially conscious prophets, but its associations

with other gods or funerary activities in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel require

further study.Victor H. Matthews

Southwest Missouri State University

 Al-Ghazālī and the Ismailis. A Debate on Reason and Authority in Medieval Islam

Farouk Mitha

The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Ismaili Heritage Series, 5

London: I. B. Taurus, 2001. xxiii + 128 p.

Despite the fact that the oeuvre of Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111l

C.E.) is the most studied of any Muslim thinker, there remain numerous questionsconcerning his many books. Farouk Mitha (MA, McGill) has examined anew al-

Ghazali’s book known as the Kitiib al-Mustazhiri and its relationship to and interac-

tion with Ismaili thought. Mitha’s work is a significant contribution to the study of

the variegated paths of medieval Muslim thinking. Al-Ghazali’s Facl~z’ila al-Batiniy~a zua fh~la’il til-Miistazhijriyya, &dquo;The Infamies of the

Bdtiniyya and the Virtues of the Mustazhiriyya,&dquo; commonly known as the Kitâb al-

Mustazhiri, refers in its title to the caliph al-Mustazhir who took office in 1094. Thisdate is important because it suggests the earliest point at which al-Ghazdli could

have written this book. Establishing the chronology of al-GhaziLli’s works is alwayscrucial for coming to an understanding of them because, as his spiritual biographymakes clear, in 1095 he withdrew from the scholastic world to join the Sufis.

The other reference in the title of al-Ghazali’s work, the Bâtini)’ya, is to those

who are known today as the Ismailis. Mitha construes this book to be a &dquo;dialogue&dquo;mediated by al-GhazAli between both parts of the title, the caliph and his support-

ers, and the Ismailis. Power and authority are at the heart of the discussion, with the

questions revolvingaround the basic

requirementsfor

leadershipin order to main-

tain the Muslim character of the community and the role of the learned classes

(’ulamd’).The Ismailis to whom al-Ghazdli refers are likely those associated with the

independent group of Hasan al-Sabbah (d. 1124) who was leading a revolt againstthe Seljuqs and the Seljuq-supported Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, independent of

the Fatimid-Ismaili power base in Cairo. Hasan was, at the time of al-Ghaz~li’s writ-

ing, a significant political and ideological threat to the heartland of Sunni Islam.

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236

 Al-GhazAli focusses upon one particular aspect of Hasan’s ideas, the one which

poses the most severe challenge to Sunni political structures: the notion of ta’lim,the idea that people need, and have, a divinely-provided, infallible, authoritative

teacher available to them whose function is to overcome the inadequacies of human

reason. This represented a challenge not only to the caliph as leader of the com-

munity but also to the claims of the ‘ulanaa’ (and al-Ghazälï himself as a member of

that group) to be able to provide authoritative decisions in law and theology.Mitha carefully and fully unfolds the content of the Kitab al-Mustazhira, which

he sees as having the major aim of protecting the integrity of the Muslim urnma

against the errors of the Batiniyya. Three issues are identified by al-Ghazali as con-

tentious : the Ismaili rejection of the notion of disagreement in the communitybeing a token of divine mercy (a principle which is based on a statement of

Muhammad, not noted by Mitha); their opposition to the truth as displayed bytheir &dquo;godlessness&dquo; and their &dquo;deception and dupery&dquo;; and their employment of

the doctrines of the &dquo;dualists and the philosophers&dquo; (32). The core element rejectedby al-Ghazdli is the belief held by the Batiniyya that reason cannot be trusted as a

source of truth because of the &dquo;mutual contradiction of individual reasonings,&dquo;&dquo;the mutual opposition of the passions&dquo; and &dquo;the disagreement of the results of

the speculation of the intelligent&dquo; (37). The only reliable source of truth must,

therefore, be from authoritative instruction (ta‘lanr) and learning directly from the

Imam.

 Al-Ghazali argues that the Batiniyya have no basis for their assertion of receiv-

ing knowledge via ta’lim and that this is simply a deception practised by the group.

He reviews the premises of the proof for the doctrine of ta’lïm and argues that its

supporters reject reason without understanding what that actually is. The Batiniyyahave no basis in transmitted knowledge for their claims, al-Ghazali suggests, and

they have violated the boundaries of Islamic thought and declared themselves non-

Muslims. The key here becomes the concept of religio-legal obligation ( fard) of obe-

dience towards the caliph and that there must always be a caliph in order to upholdthe shara ‘a. Al-Ghazali makes this argument in the hopes of rehabilitating the office

of the caliph by asserting its necessity in the face not only of the challenge of the

Ismaili Imam but also the Seljuq military rulers who did, in reality, have controllingpower, rendering the person of the caliph seemingly superfluous.

Mitha argues that the central concerns of al-Ghazali in this text are the same as

those which have occupied Muslim intellectuals-and continue to occupy them-

from the beginnings of reflection on Islam. The need to define orthodoxy is clear

in al-Ghazali’s polemic against the Bdtini~,ya. He desires to establish the limits to tol-

erable dissent within the framework of the interdependence of law and theology. Al-Ghazali’s definition of reason both refutes the (anti-rationalistic) notion of ta’iïm and

establishes the authority of the ’ulamd, and, at the same time, it upholds the theo-

retical role of reason within the

explicationand elaboration of law and

theology.Mitha suggests that al-Ghazali was perversely fascinated by the Ismaili ideal of

unconditional devotion to an individual teacher and, as a response, he formulated

the Sunni stance that only devotion to the sunna of Muhammad was acceptable;notably, the arguments for both positions were similar which makes the point that

it was not the doctrine that was rejected so much as it was the person connected to

the end result who was objectionable. For al-Ghazdli and the Sunni community after

him, the authority of the community flowing from the individual person of

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Muhammad replaces that of the living, present Imam of the Ismailis. Yet even there,the tension remains with the authority of the individual member of the ’ulamil

especially al-Ghazdli himself.

Mitha’s work is thorough, clear and up-to-date in its references to and under-

standing of contemporary scholarship (being especially indebted to the work of

George Makdisi). Mitha has moved the analysis of this book beyond seeing it as a

text reflecting al-Ghazali’s political views generally unconnected to the polemicagainst the Ismailis (as had been common in previous scholarship). He has also

placed the Ismailis back into the intellectual atmosphere of medieval Islam; theywere not a group off to the side but were part and parcel of the &dquo;traffic of ideas&dquo; in

those centuries, as al-Ghazali’s text reminds us.

 Andrew

RippinDepartment of History, University of Victoria

The Solidarity of Kin: Ethnohistory, Religious Studies, and the Algonkian-French Religious Encounter

Kenneth M. Morrison

 Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. x + 243 p.

TheJesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-CenturyNorth America

 Allan Greer, editorNew York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. xiii + 226 p.

 Although these two publications deal with related aspects of missionary work in

North America, based initially in good measure on the same primary source material,

they represent two very different approaches destined for different readerships.Morrison writes for scholars while Greer has edited a volume of readings gearedessentially to undergraduate students.

Kenneth Morrison is Professor of Religion at Arizona State University and editor

of the SUNY series in Native American

religionin which 7 he

Solidarity of Kin appears.In this collection of eight essays, five of which are reprints of earlier historical papersand three of which were written specifically for this book, we have an attempt to build

bridges between ethnohistory and religious studies. The venture may be deemed a

success. Its success depends upon the two first chapters dealing with the method-

ological problems of studying Algonkian religious life. The concluding chapter seeks

to bring together the French and Eastern Algonkian cosmologies in terms of a kin-

ship relation. This may not be a new concept but it has never been treated as suc-

cinctly before.

From the outset, one is reassured by the author’s acquaintance with the relevant

disciplinary and inter-disciplinary literatures and concepts. In the effort to under-stand the process and involvement of all participants in colonization and evange-

lization, Morrison struggles to present the intricacies of cultural contact. Appeal is

made to many different writers who have laboured on the borders of the same vine-

yard. North American missions were not a unique experience in the history of Euro-

peans as a study of early Christian missionary work and conquest of the &dquo;barbarian

tribes&dquo; of the Old World reveals. This invites further comparative religious studies.

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