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Title: Islam and the Soviet Union by Yaacov Ro'i ISBN: 0-231-11954-2 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2 (1 review)
Rating: 2
Summary: Beginners Beware...
Comment: If you have the patience to read all 600+ pages of this book, you may come out of the experience with a considerably warped understanding of Muslim life in the Soviet Union and of Islam in general. The author does not appear to have had any exposure to religious studies, Islamic studies, and the history of Central Asia.
The flaws of this book and the Bennigsen school have been covered in Devin DeWeese, "The Legacy of Sovietological Islamology: A Review of Yaacov Ro'i's Islam in the Soviet Union", a 30-something page article which appeared in the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies last year. This article is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about Islam in the Soviet Union. One thing DeWeese doesn't mention, and which serves as an example of the kinds of flaws evident in almost every sentence of this book, is Ro'i's repeated, unsubstantiated, and entirely incorrect references to the Takht-i Sulaymon pilgrimage site in O'sh, Kyrgyzstan as "the most popular shrine in Central Asia." A religious studies approach would have afforded the author the understanding that it is not legitimate to make generalizations, especially vis-a-vis religious life and shrines in particular, about a region as vast and culturally diverse as "Central Asia" (which term is itself an ill-conceived child of the Great Game).
Another telling example, also mentioned in DeWeese's review, is the consistent and uncritical repetition of Soviet statistics on the number of shrines in the various Soviet republics. At one point, we are told that in one year there were 23 shrines in Kazakstan. This number is not only "meaningless", as DeWeese says, but absolutely ludicrous. There are more shrines than that in the area of a radius of 100 km around the town of Turkistan in southern Kazakstan. There are (and certainly were) more than 23 shrines in the area around Almaty. Ro'i does the right thing by quoting the Soviet statistics, for no part of history is without value in a study such as this, but misses a precious opportunity to analyze what these ridiculous numbers say about the whole project of studying religious life using Soviet methods of analysis. He at least could have discussed possible differences between the ways the Soviets defined a "shrine" and the perspectives local people had. (Admittedly, such research would have required actual interviews with real people.) In the same vein, Ro'i assumes that words such as "unofficial", "unregistered", and "association" can have any actual applicability to Muslim life.
As DeWeese mentions, Ro'i follows other disciples of the Bennigsen school (e.g., Martha Brill Olcott) in excluding works written in the languages of Central Asia, the Caucasus, or Tatar or Bashkir from the bibliography. How can we be expected to learn anything substantial about as nuanced and complex a topic as religious life in Central Asia (or anywhere else) from skewed and biased works written in the language of its most recent conquerors (the Russians) who had uncompromising preconceptions about the nature of religion and could not be expected to understand or appreciate the people of "Central Asia" or other regions on their own terms because of their "nationalities"-based view of the world and history? And the problems associated with relying on English language source, almost all of which rely on Russian sources as well, are obvious.
The list of problems goes on and on. Still, the work earns two stars because no one else has had the courage or time to embark upon such an intimidating enterprise before. Ro'i deserves respect for that. His analysis of the purely Soviet (mostly meaning bureaucratic) realms of the topic are also insightful. As DeWeese writes, this book is essential for students of Islam in the Soviet Union. But if you are just learning about Islam and/or Central Asia, PLEASE do not read this book until you have gained a grounding in Islam, Central Asian history, and religious studies. Edward Allworth's The Modern Uzbeks is an accessible if somewhat outdated intro. DeWeese's Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde and Adeeb Khalid's book about Jadidism are also valuable. Other recommendations are McChesney's 400 years in the history of a Muslim shrine, and David Tyson's article at www.chalidze.com entitled Shrine Pilgrimage as a means of understanding Islam among the Turkmen. Bruce Privratsky's Muslim Turkistan is really a fine work which lacks a nuanced perspective on purely historical topics (e.g., the watered-down discussion of ethnicity) but has valuable insights on Muslim life in southern Kazakstan. Perhaps other reviewers could do us all favor by recommending other works.
The fact that this review has mostly focused on recommending other works will hopefully reveal the danger of relying solely on Islam in the Soviet Union for an understanding of Muslim life in this region.
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Title: Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools by Jonathan Zimmerman ISBN: 0674009185 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 19 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Benjamin Franklin : An American Life by Walter Isaacson ISBN: 0684807610 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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