Book: Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: Ulama in the Middle East

In its whole, this volume is sure to become a valuable tool to both historians and social scientists working on Islamic law and on the social, political and intellectual history of the modern Middle East.

This collective volume provides an integrative historical and contemporary discussion of Sunni ʿulamaʾ in the Middle East in both an urban and a semi-tribal context. The various chapters reinforce a renewed interest in the position of the ʿulamaʾ in modern times and offer new insights as to their ideological vitality and contribution to the public discourse on moral and sociopolitical issues.

Meir Hatina, Ph.D (1998) is senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Author of Islam and Salvation in Palestine (2001) and Identity Politics in the Middle East: Liberal Discourse and Islamic Challenge in Egypt (2007), he has published extensively on modern Islamic thought and politics.

Table of Contents:

PART ONE

The “Heirs of the Prophets” In Islamic History

ʻUlamaʼ between the State and the Society in Pre-modern Sunni Islam, Michael Winter

Al-Jabarti’s Attitude towards the ʻUlamaʼ of His Time, Shmuel Moreh

PART TWO

Confronting a changing world: Modernization, Reform and National Discourse

ʻUlamaʼ and Political Activism in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Political Career of Seyhulislam Mustafa Sabri, Efendi (1869-1954), Amit Bein

Italian Colonial Rule and the Muslim Elites in Libya: A Relationship of Antagonism and Collaboration, Anna Baldinetti

Education, Politics, and the Struggle for Intellectual Leadership: al-Azhar between 1927 and 1945, Rainer Brunner

The Iraqi Afghanis and Abduhs: Debate over Reform among Shiite and Sunni ʻUlamaʼ in Interwar Iraq, Orit Bashkin

Western Scholars on the Role of the ʻUlamaʼ in Adapting the Shariʻa to Modernity: A Critical Review, Ron Shaham

PART THREE

Guardians of the Faith in Semi-Tribal Societies

ʻUlamaʼ, Tribalism and the National Struggle in Morocco, 1944-1956, Daniel Zisenwine

Reconciling Tribalism and Islam in the Writings of Contemporary Wahhabi ʻUlamaʼ, Muhammad al-Atawneh

PART FOUR

Ideological Rivals

Wahhabis, Sufis and Salafis in Early Twentieth Century Damascus, David Commins

The Clerics’ Betrayal Islamists, ʻUlamaʼ and the Polity, Meir Hatina

Liberal Critics, ʻUlamaʼ and the Debate on Islam in the Contemporary Arab World, Muhammad Abu Samra

In Defense of Muhammad: ʻUlamaʼ, Daiya and the New Islamic Internationalism, Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen.

Bibliographic Information

Title: Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: Ulama in the Middle East

Editor: Meir Hatina

Publisher: BRILL

Language: English

Length: 344 pages

ISBN: 9789004169531

Pub. Date: November 2008

Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: Ulama in the Middle East