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A Search for the Anthropology of Islam: Abdul Hamid El-Zein
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
Extract
“Zein,” as friends and colleagues knew him, practiced an interpretive anthropology that, like the writing of history, is a craft in which the best work is realized only after long years of field experience, study, and the development of concepts and themes through teaching and writing. Zein's sudden death on 13 August 1979 at the age of 44 cut short his work just as it began to achieve its fullest form.
Zein's professional career was divided between two remarkably distinct periods. The first of these lasted for roughly the decade prior to 1966, during which he mastered the conventions of what might be called a standard, functionalist anthropology and applied them to ethnographic research in Egypt. The second period began in 1966 with his participation in the formative period of symbolic anthropology at the University of Chicago.
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Notes
1 Used by Ibn Khaldūn of a state which is no more than the personal will or autocracy of the sovereign; a state in which the sovereign is “claiming exclusive authority on the strength of the preeminence acquired by personal effort or achievement,” infarād bi-I-majd (Rosenthal, E. I. J., Political Thought in Medieval Islam [Cambridge, 1968], p. 87).Google ScholarIbn, Khaldūn's power state, siyāsa 'aqlīya, may be likened to Max Weber's “patrimonialism” (Economy and Society, ed. Roth, G. and Wittich, C. [New York, 1968], pp. 231–232)Google Scholar and Brown's, L. Carl “bureaucratic polity” (The Tunisia of Ahmad Bey, 1837–1885 [Princeton, 1974], pp. 313–334; 353–366.)Google Scholar
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4 Muhammad al-Saghir al-Wufrānī, Nozhet el-Hadi: Histoire de la dynastie saadienne au Maroc, 1511–1670, trans. Houdas, O. (Paris, 1889), p. 12, Ar. text; pp. 24–25, Fr. trans.Google Scholar
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23 Ibid., p. 275, Ar. text; p. 458, Fr. trans.
24 Ibid., p. 277, Ar. text; p. 460, Fr. trans.
25 Ibid., p. 248, Ar. text; p. 411, Fr. trans.
26 Ibid. p. 249, Ar. text; p. 413, Fr. trans.
27 Cf. the date, 1640, given by al-Wufrānī, (p. 254, Ar. text; p. 423, Fr. trans.)Google ScholarRobert, Blake, an eyewitness of the battle gives the date 1638. (“Journal de Robert Blake [1639],” Sources inédites 1eáer série Anglererre, III, 509–510; “Lettre de Gaspard de Rastin à Richelieu,” Sources Inédites leéer série France, Vol. III [Paris, 1911], p. 586 and n.1).Google Scholar
28 Al-wufrānīni, , p. 254, Ar. text; p. 281, Fr. trans.Google Scholar
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32 Bngnon, J. et al. , Hisroire du Maroc (Paris, 1967), p. 230.Google Scholar
33 Fes is divided into two cities: Old Fes (Fes al-Bāli) and New Fes (Fes al-Jadīd).
34 On the chequered history of the city-state of Tetuan, see Sources inédites leéer série Angleterre, III, 54–554Google Scholar passim; Sources inédites léer serie France. III, 583Google Scholar and n.1. See also Latham, J. D., “The Reconstruction and Expansion of Tetuan: The Period of Andalusian Immigration,” in Makdisi, G. ed. Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honour of Hamilton A. R. Gibb (Leiden, 1965), pp. 387 ff.Google Scholar
35 Al-Wufrānī, , p. 281, Ar. text; p. 467Google Scholar, Fr. trans.; Abūl'l-Abbās, Ahmad ibn Khālid al-Nāsirī, Kitūb al-Istiqsā li-A khbār Duwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, Part VII (Casablanca, 1956)Google Scholar, Fr. trans. Fumey, E., Archives Marocaines, IX (1906), 16 ff., Ar. text; 21 ff., Fr. trans.Google Scholar
36 The authoritative study of Ghailān is “Les Rais El-Khaḍir Ghailān,” by Péretié, M. A.; in an exclusive edition of Archives Marocaines, 18 (1912).Google Scholar
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38 H. de Castries, “Les trois republiques.”
39 Al-Wufrānī, , p. 301, Ar. text; p. 499, Fr. trans.Google Scholar
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48 Ibid., p. 90 n.l.
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50 Ibid., pp. 94 ff; Cf, . Sources inédites 2è série France, I, 190 and n.1.Google Scholar
51 But not the end of Ghailān's resistance to the ‘Alawī dynasty. Ghailān was later to reappear in Morocco in 1673, determined to regain his lost power. Armed by the English, he fought courageously but was defeated and killed in a decisive battle near al-Qasr al-Kabir by Mawlay Ismā'īl, brother and successor of al-Rashīd.
52 Al-Qādirī, , p. 200;Google Scholaral-Ziyānī, , p. 9, Ar. text; p. 19Google Scholar, Fr. trans.; al-Nāsirī, , p. 36, Ar. text; p. 49Google Scholar, Fr. trans.; al-Wufrānī, , p. 284, Ar. text; p. 472, Fr. trans.Google Scholar
53 Al-Wufrānī, , pp. 259–258. Ar. text: p. 428, Fr. trans.Google Scholar
54 Ibid., p. 287, Ar. text; pp. 476–77, Fr. trans.
55 Moutte, G., “Histoire des Conquêtes de Mouley Archy… Sources inédites 2é séries France, Vol. II (Paris, 1924), p. 35.Google Scholar
56 Sources inédites lèer série France, Vol. III (Paris, 1911), p. 583.Google Scholar
57 Al-Wufrānī, , p. 304, Ar. text; p. 503, Fr. trans. Al-Rashīd was riding a horse in a garden when he accidentally hit his head against the branch of an orange tree; he died immediately.Google Scholar
58 Al-Nāsirī, , pp. 19–20, Ar. text; pp. 25–26, Fr. trans.Google Scholar
59 See p. 4.
60 “Journal of Carteret, G.,” Sources inédites lère série Angleterre, Vol. III (Paris, 1935), p. 455, n. 2.Google Scholar
61 Nor was Muhammad al-Hājj alone in this; al-'Ayāshī also exercised power in Fes from his base in Salé, prior to his death, through confrontation with Dilā, in 1641, but he, too, never assumed the sovereign title of sultan.
62 Elbaki, Hermassi, Leadership and National Development in North Africa (California, 1972), p. 44.Google Scholar
63 “In the case of charismatic authority, it is the charismatically qualified leader as such who is obeyed by virtue of personal trust in his revelation, his heroism or his exemplary qualities, so far as they fall within the scope of the individual's belief in his charisma” (Weber, , p. 216).Google Scholar
64 Cf. Louis XIV of France: “L'etat c'est moi.”
65 Like the zawiya of Dilā' in the 17th century, the political factions struggling for power after the death of Mawlay Ismā'il in the 18th century did not aspire to sovereignty. Lacking, like the zawiya of Dilā', the legitimacy to rule, these factions did no more than support the candidacy of the sons of Mawlay Ismā'il (Brignon, et al. , pp. 257 ff.).Google Scholar
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69 See n.65.
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