The Contemporary Islamic Revival A Critical Survey and Bibliography By Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad et al. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 1991, 230 pp.

Abstract

This book is the twentieth volume to appear in the Bibliographies and
Indexes in Religious Studies series published by Greenwood Press. It is
divided into two parts: a) the introductory chapters, and b) the main body
of the bibliography and the indexes. The three introductory chapters give
an overview of contemporary Islamic revivalist movements from somewhat
different perspectives and address many critical issues that are difficult
to deal with adequately in just three chaptets.
Chapter one discusses such issues as the factors behind the growth of
revivalist movements, fundamental issues that provide the primary focus
for revivalist writings, the bias of scholars in the West who write and
conduct research on Islamic and Middle Eastem studies, and the establishment
of Shari'ah schools in Muslim countries. However, this chapter
contains many less-than-authentic statements or, in other words, some
methodological misinformation. For example, the author refers to a1
'Arabi and a1 Muslim a1 Mu 'air as "two Kuwaiti magazines" that tried
to promote an intellectual controverjy on "whether the companions of the
Prophet Muhammad were leftist or rightist and whether the sources of the
formative period of Islam can be subjected to modem re-interpretation to
justify claims of Islamic precedent to proponents of 'Islamic left' and
'Islamic right"' (p. 5). The author does not document the reasons for this
conclusion, in spite of the fact that the two magazines are different both
in their natures and their contents. AZ 'Arabi is a monthly magazine that
discusses current issues for a wide public in the Arab world, whereas a1
Muslim a1 Mu'iisir is a quarterly publication that contains various types
of articles related to the Islamization of knowledge.
The author of this chapter has attempted to cover a variety of historical,
political, and socioeconomic issues. Unfortunately, the attempt is
marred by its inconsistency. For instance, English literature on contemporary
Islamic revivalism, the use of modem media for the dissemination
of Islamic literature, and the status and role of Muslim women
were discussed twice in different parts of the chapter. Many critical terms
appear without satisfactory justification: "terrorists," "zealots," "militants," ...