Synopses & Reviews
Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this incisive book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.
Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.
The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.
Review
Praise for Noah Feldman's : "Powerful and important.
Review
"[A] concise and thoughtful history of the evolution of the Islamic legal system from the time of the first caliphs (the successors to the prophet Muhammad) to our own....Feldman thinks that the restoration of the authority of sharia in modern Muslim-majority nations might be the only way for them to move beyond their current democracy deficits....Feldman is not so naive as to give them a free pass. Nor does he ignore the democratic deficiencies of the two nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that have sharia as the law of the land. While saying that principles of sharia will have to become part of the constitutional fabric of modern Islamic states, he adds that this will work only if Islamists find new institutions to give life to sharia."--Jay Tolson, U.S. News and World Report
Review
The growing clamor for a return to Sharia law in the Muslim world has often been met with alarm by the West. But Feldman remains coolheaded, placing the movement in a historical context and suggesting that its ideal of 'a just legal system, one that administers the law fairly,' is an understandable goal in a region dominated by unchecked oligarchies. -- New Yorker In a short but masterful exposition, The Fall and Rise of The Islamic State, Noah Feldman seeks to answer a question that puzzles most Western observers: Why do so many Muslims demand the 'restoration' of a legal system that most Occidentals associate with 'medieval' punishments such as amputation for theft and stoning for sexual transgressions? -- Malise Ruthven, New York Review of Books In a short, incisive and elegant book, [Feldman] lays out for the non-specialist reader some of the forms that Islamic rule has taken over the centuries, while also stressing the differences between today's politican Islam and previous forms of Islamic administration. -- The Economist A thoughtful meditation on the history, ideals, and revival of sharia--the divine law governing Muslim society... It is abundantly clear that fresh models of governance in some Muslim nations will be required to build genuine consensus, afford legal justice, and guarantee peace and security... Feldman predicts success for those countries which can 'develop new institutions that would find their own original and distinctive way of giving real life to the ideals of Islamic law.' ... A persuasive and readable book on a complex topic. -- Joseph Richard Preville, Christian Science Monitor [A] concise and thoughtful history of the evolution of the Islamic legal system from the time of the first caliphs (the successors to the prophet Muhammad) to our own....Feldman thinks that the restoration of the authority of sharia in modern Muslim-majority nations might be the only way for them to move beyond their current democracy deficits....Feldman is not so naive as to give them a free pass. Nor does he ignore the democratic deficiencies of the two nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that have sharia as the law of the land. While saying that principles of sharia will have to become part of the constitutional fabric of modern Islamic states, he adds that this will work only if Islamists find new institutions to give life to sharia. -- Jay Tolson, U.S. News & World Report Feldman condemns the autocracies in many Muslim countries but argues that sharia is not to blame. On the contrary, he says, in the traditional Sunni constitutional order, sharia was interpreted by an independent class of scholars who served as a check on tyrrany, preventing rulers from exploiting religion to justify their political positions. -- Washington Post Book World Feldman can be an illuminating analyst . . . on the subject of the marginalization of legal scholars and its consequences for the development of despotisms with an Islamic face. -- Commentary Feldman argues that legislators seeking implementation of a sharia-based rule of law can play the role of earlier scholars in taming executive autocracy. . . . [Offers] wide-ranging discussions and nuanced reasoning. -- L. Carl Brown, Foreign Affairs [An] excellent contribution to the ongoing discussion on Islam and secular states. -- Abdulkader Tayob, International Affairs A study of the recrudescence of 'Islamist' thought, which advocates the return to a shari'a state. . . . The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State is profound, intelligent, and free of all the hysterical pronouncements one often associates with both the defenders and antagonists of that idea. -- Arnold Ages, Chicago Jewish Star This is a fascinating book for the counselor and statesperson, and is a sequel to a former book dealing with Islam and democracy. -- Imtiaz Jafar, New York Law Journal Powerfully argued and original. . . . [T]his book has the considerable merit of seeing inside the Islamist mentality. -- Anthony Black, Political Studies Review The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State provide[s] an accessible and engaging account of the institutional struggles and changes which befall Islamic constitutionalism from the Ottoman era to the present. . . . [T]he book intended for both academic and non-academic audiences makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on Islamic law and constitutionalism. -- Shadi Mokhtari, Law and Politics Book Review Whether you agree or disagree with Professor Feldman about what constitutes an Islamic state, you will most likely be captivated by the author's scholarly reflections. -- Abdullahi A. Gallab, Journal of Law & Religion
Review
"The growing clamor for a return to Sharia law in the Muslim world has often been met with alarm by the West. But Feldman remains coolheaded, placing the movement in a historical context and suggesting that its ideal of 'a just legal system, one that administers the law fairly,' is an understandable goal in a region dominated by unchecked oligarchies."--New Yorker
Review
"In a short but masterful exposition, The Fall and Rise of The Islamic State, Noah Feldman seeks to answer a question that puzzles most Western observers: Why do so many Muslims demand the 'restoration' of a legal system that most Occidentals associate with 'medieval' punishments such as amputation for theft and stoning for sexual transgressions?"--Malise Ruthven, New York Review of Books
Review
"In a short, incisive and elegant book, [Feldman] lays out for the non-specialist reader some of the forms that Islamic rule has taken over the centuries, while also stressing the differences between today's politican Islam and previous forms of Islamic administration."--The Economist
Review
"A thoughtful meditation on the history, ideals, and revival of sharia--the divine law governing Muslim society... It is abundantly clear that fresh models of governance in some Muslim nations will be required to build genuine consensus, afford legal justice, and guarantee peace and security... Feldman predicts success for those countries which can 'develop new institutions that would find their own original and distinctive way of giving real life to the ideals of Islamic law.' ... A persuasive and readable book on a complex topic."--Joseph Richard Preville, Christian Science Monitor
Review
"Feldman condemns the autocracies in many Muslim countries but argues that sharia is not to blame. On the contrary, he says, in the traditional Sunni constitutional order, sharia was interpreted by an independent class of scholars who served as a check on tyrrany, preventing rulers from exploiting religion to justify their political positions."--Washington Post Book World
Review
"Feldman can be an illuminating analyst . . . on the subject of the marginalization of legal scholars and its consequences for the development of despotisms with an Islamic face."--Commentary
Review
"Feldman argues that legislators seeking implementation of a sharia-based rule of law can play the role of earlier scholars in taming executive autocracy. . . . [Offers] wide-ranging discussions and nuanced reasoning."--L. Carl Brown, Foreign Affairs
Review
[An] excellent contribution to the ongoing discussion on Islam and secular states. L. Carl Brown - Foreign Affairs
Review
A study of the recrudescence of 'Islamist' thought, which advocates the return to a shari'a state. . . . The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State is profound, intelligent, and free of all the hysterical pronouncements one often associates with both the defenders and antagonists of that idea. Abdulkader Tayob - International Affairs
Review
This is a fascinating book for the counselor and statesperson, and is a sequel to a former book dealing with Islam and democracy. -- Imtiaz Jafar, New York Law Journal
Review
Powerfully argued and original. . . . [T]his book has the considerable merit of seeing inside the Islamist mentality. -- Anthony Black, Political Studies Review
Review
The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State provide[s] an accessible and engaging account of the institutional struggles and changes which befall Islamic constitutionalism from the Ottoman era to the present. . . . [T]he book intended for both academic and non-academic audiences makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on Islamic law and constitutionalism. Anthony Black - Political Studies Review
Review
Whether you agree or disagree with Professor Feldman about what constitutes an Islamic state, you will most likely be captivated by the author's scholarly reflections. Shadi Mokhtari - Law and Politics Book Review
Review
This is a fascinating book for the counselor and statesperson, and is a sequel to a former book dealing with Islam and democracy. Arnold Ages - Chicago Jewish Star
Review
Powerfully argued and original. . . . [T]his book has the considerable merit of seeing inside the Islamist mentality. Imtiaz Jafar - New York Law Journal
Review
One of Economist's Best Books for 2008
Winner of the 2008 PROSE Award in Government and Politics, Association of American Publishers
Synopsis
In this penetrating book, Feldman explores the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world and what that could mean for Muslims and Westerners alike.
Synopsis
Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this incisive book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.
Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.
The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.
Synopsis
"In Feldman's fascinating intellectual journey through history, Islamic law, and modern politics, you will discover the power of 'justice.' It is both the driving force behind efforts in the Arab world to democratize, constitutionalize, and modernize Islam, and a weapon for the worst kind of abuses and authoritarianism. Feldman's book works through these tensions between theology and power with consummate dispassion and scholarship."
--Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and former New York Times columnist"Noah Feldman has raised a central discussion in Islam about the nature of the Islamic state that is too often missed or misunderstood. Regardless of ideological or religious affiliation, the reader needs to engage with Feldman's clear and sympathetic arguments in order to make sense of what is happening in the Muslim world today."--Akbar S. Ahmed, American University
"Scholarly and sophisticated yet highly accessible, this book makes an extremely important contribution to contemporary discussions of both Muslim politics and Islamic law. Feldman's work provides a historical depth that has often been lacking in studies of law and constitutionalism in modern Muslim societies."--Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of The Ulama in Contemporary Islam
Synopsis
"In Feldman's fascinating intellectual journey through history, Islamic law, and modern politics, you will discover the power of 'justice.' It is both the driving force behind efforts in the Arab world to democratize, constitutionalize, and modernize Islam, and a weapon for the worst kind of abuses and authoritarianism. Feldman's book works through these tensions between theology and power with consummate dispassion and scholarship."--Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and former New York Times columnist
"Noah Feldman has raised a central discussion in Islam about the nature of the Islamic state that is too often missed or misunderstood. Regardless of ideological or religious affiliation, the reader needs to engage with Feldman's clear and sympathetic arguments in order to make sense of what is happening in the Muslim world today."--Akbar S. Ahmed, American University
"Scholarly and sophisticated yet highly accessible, this book makes an extremely important contribution to contemporary discussions of both Muslim politics and Islamic law. Feldman's work provides a historical depth that has often been lacking in studies of law and constitutionalism in modern Muslim societies."--Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of The Ulama in Contemporary Islam
Synopsis
Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this incisive book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.
Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.
The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.
Synopsis
"In Feldman's fascinating intellectual journey through history, Islamic law, and modern politics, you will discover the power of 'justice.' It is both the driving force behind efforts in the Arab world to democratize, constitutionalize, and modernize Islam, and a weapon for the worst kind of abuses and authoritarianism. Feldman's book works through these tensions between theology and power with consummate dispassion and scholarship."--Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and former
New York Times columnist
"Noah Feldman has raised a central discussion in Islam about the nature of the Islamic state that is too often missed or misunderstood. Regardless of ideological or religious affiliation, the reader needs to engage with Feldman's clear and sympathetic arguments in order to make sense of what is happening in the Muslim world today."--Akbar S. Ahmed, American University
"Scholarly and sophisticated yet highly accessible, this book makes an extremely important contribution to contemporary discussions of both Muslim politics and Islamic law. Feldman's work provides a historical depth that has often been lacking in studies of law and constitutionalism in modern Muslim societies."--Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of The Ulama in Contemporary Islam
About the Author
Noah Feldman is professor at Harvard Law School. He is a contributing writer for the "New York Times Magazine" and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of "Divided by God, What We Owe Iraq" (Princeton), and "After Jihad".
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
PART I: What Went Right? 17
PART II: Decline and Fall 57
PART III: The Rise of the New Islamic State 103
Conclusion 147
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 153
NOTES 155
INDEX 177
Author Q&A
Six Questions for Noah Feldman, Author of The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State
Harvard law professor Noah Feldman has written extensively on law and religion issues, and with U.S. government sponsorship he played a significant role in the preparation of the Iraqi constitution. In a series of provocative articles in the New York Times Magazine, Feldman has also challenged modern notions of secularism and has advocated a greater role for religious law, including, most recently, shari'a. I put six questions to Noah Feldman on the basis of his new book, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State.
Noah Feldman: In Europe there always lurked in the background the Roman idea of the prince who was above the law (legibus solutus), and subjected himself to law by choice. In the Muslim world, by contrast, the ruler was always subject to the law–arguably much closer to the contemporary ideal of constitutional rule. In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire started reforming along Western lines, and many Middle Eastern countries ended up with dominant executives essentially unfettered by law.
2. Orhan Pamuk, in his novel My Name is Red, set in Istanbul in the 16th century, gives a vivid example of legal indeterminacy in the Islamic legal mode he presents what we would call a case of intestate succession, and shows how competing interests connived to identify their own judges and secure their own verdicts. His tale is set in Istanbul proper in privileged circles close to the court, and his analysis finds not a lack of access to justice, but rather too much, with unpredictable and inconsistent results. But the indeterminacy question doesn't seem to get much attention in your book. Is it not, however, one of the major problems with the traditional Islamic legal model?
Feldman: I love Pamuk's novel! And yes, Islamic legal theory always recognized some indeterminacy in the human interpretation of God's law (what my colleague Baber Johansen calls "contingency in sacred law"). Indeterminacy is an inevitable feature of a legal system based on interpretation, as is the common law or U.S. constitutional law; and in general it is a price we are willing to pay in exchange for flexibility and the law's ability to develop to meet new challenges. When Ottoman reformers sought to reduce legal principles to rules in a legal code, they disempowered the scholars who, it turns out, were key figures in keeping the ruler responsible to limits. So codes and their specificity have risks, too.
3. You argue that "the paradigm of the executive as a force unchecked by either the shari'a of the scholars or the popular authority of an elected legislature became the dominant paradigm in most of the Sunni Muslim world in the twentieth century." This seems right to me to an extent, but it neglects the Islamist critique, namely, that these governments are corrupted and weakened by their dependency on hegemonistic European powers, first the imperialists in the period through the fifties, and then the bipolar world that emerged thereafter. Wasn't it the overweening role of secular foreign powers that provided the basis for the delegitimization of these states, much more than lack of real legislatures or a mutually reinforcing relationship with the scholars?
Feldman: I'd say it was both. Dependence on foreign money, whether in exchange for oil or for a friendly foreign policy, certainly makes a government non-responsive to its citizens, and that costs it legitimacy. But part of the reason these governments could get away with being so non-responsive is that the force in society that traditionally criticized them (albeit quietly) and called them to account had been weakened to the point of irrelevance. The two kinds of illegitimacy worked together.
4. The last section of the book is entitled "Rise of the New Islamic State," but I struggled to locate this rising new state on a map. You make clear that you don't equate the "new Islamic state" with Iran, although you discuss that model. But since there is no "new Islamic state," what is rising here other than an idea?
Feldman: The new constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan, despite being drafted in the shadow of U.S. occupation, both make Islam the official religion and shari'a a source of law; both also bar laws that contradict certain aspects of Islamic law. These are democratic and Islamic constitutions. And whatever their many flaws, they are the two constitutions most recently drafted under relatively free conditions in the Muslim world. (I don't count Musharraf's unilateral amendments in Pakistan.) This raises the question what other majority-Muslim states would do if they were redrafting their constitutions under popular influence.
5. Even taking the new Islamic state as an idea, is it consistent, programmatic, realizable in any meaningful sense? I thought in opening up your book that I would find an attempt to distill from current writing an outline of this state–as we can, of course, say that there is a concept of an Islamic Republic in Iran. There are groups, such as Hibz ut-Tahrir, which have certainly offered a programmatic outline of a new Islamic state, but it seems tough to say these groups really exercise any meaningful influence. Other more radical groups use the phrase as a sort of slogan. Can you build a state from slogans?
Feldman: State-building is one of the hardest tasks there is, and slogans don't cut it. Most mainstream Islamists who embrace democratic means of gaining power have an underdeveloped sense of how they'd govern. In Iraq you can see in outline one way of doing it: the Shi'i clerics are on the sidelines, not generally holding office, but they exert an influence over what laws are passed. The Islamists face long odds of building effective institutions that can actually deliver the rule of law, but they will continue to receive popular support until they have a chance to try. If they fail, that support will dry up.
6. In the New York Times Magazine from March 16, you published a provocative article which seems straight out of this book. In it you refer to the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent proposal to allow the use of shari'a and Jewish law in voluntary family and arbitration courts, and then make the argument that "millions of Muslims think [shari'a] means the rule of law." Of course, the archbishop's proposal is something quite modest, allowing a voluntary alternative dispute regime on an opt-in basis. But isn't the first problem in accepting shari'a as the rule of law coming to a simple agreement as to what shari'a is, and isn't it unlikely that 1.2 billion Muslims will accept what an American law professor–or anyone else–thinks it is?
Feldman: I used the reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech to highlight the huge difference between what Westerners think shari'a is and what many in the Muslim world believe. Of course there is great variation on this question among 1.2 billion Muslims, as there is on almost everything. My goal isn't to tell anyone in the Muslim world what they should think their faith teaches. It is, rather, to help explain why there is so much support for the idea of shari'a in so many Muslim countries and to explore how the past and future of Islamic government illuminate the debate.
From Harper's Magazine, by Scott Horton, Originally Published April 3, 2008