International Journal of Middle East Studies: Volume 39 -

NEMATOLLAH FAZELIPolitics of Culture in Iran: Anthropology, Politics, and Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Routledge/BIPS Persian Studies Series, 2006). Pp. 260. 115.00 cloth
MICHAEL M. J. FISCHER
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07 March 2007, pp. 123-125
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RAHIM ACARTalking about God and Talking about Creation: Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' Positions, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science, Text and Studies (Leiden/Boston: E. J. Brill, 2005). Pp. 260. €99.00/$142.00 cloth
Jon McGinnis
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02 May 2007, pp. 291-292
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A “YOUNG TURK” ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL: FILIBELI AHMED HILMI AND THE DIVERSE INTELLECTUAL LEGACIES OF THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Amit Bein
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30 October 2007, pp. 607-625
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Among the late Ottoman thinkers and writers who laid the foundations of intellectual life in modern Turkey, Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi (1865–1914) is a prominent figure. His intellectual legacy survived the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Virtually all his books have been republished in recent years in simplified modern Turkish versions accessible to present-day readers, and some have also been the subject of academic studies. His oeuvre includes dozens of historical, philosophical, theological, and political works, as well as novels, poems, satirical pieces, and plays. All were produced in a six-year period, between the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and his death by poisoning in 1914. The overtly modernist underpinnings of his works on the one hand, and his Sufi piety and firm rejection of materialism and positivism on the other, have earned him recognition as an early exponent of a modernist, nonliteralist Islamic agenda of a kind that has been conspicuous in a variety of Turkish-Islamic movements in recent decades. His untimely death, later attributed to a Freemason–Zionist conspiracy, added further to his mystique in some Islamic circles. Modernist yet deeply devout, Islamist yet uninterested in scripturalist paths of religious revival, Ahmed Hilmi stands out as a representative of an important intellectual trend that has often been overlooked in studies of the late Ottoman period.

DAVID ZEIDAN, The Resurgence of Religion: A Comparative Study of Selected Themes in Christian and Islamic Fundamentalist Discourses, Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden/Boston: E. J. Brill, 2003). Pp. 402. $132.00 cloth
SCOTT MORRISON
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02 August 2007, pp. 459-461
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NILOOFAR HAERISacred Language. Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Pp. 200. $69.95 cloth. $21.95 paper
MONIQUE BERNARDS
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07 March 2007, pp. 125-126
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MANSOOR MOADDEL, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Pp. 448. $24.00 paper
JOHN CALVERT
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02 August 2007, pp. 461-462
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WAEL B. HALLAQThe Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, Themes in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Pp. 234. $70.00 cloth, $24.99 paper
Joseph E. Lowry
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02 May 2007, pp. 292-294
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PROBLEMATIZING A PALESTINIAN DIASPORA
Julie Peteet
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30 October 2007, pp. 627-646
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The year 1948 marks the beginning of al-ghurba (exile or diaspora) and al-nakba (disaster or calamity), words intensely resonant in the Palestinian lexicon. After this decisive date, one can affix “pre-” or “post-” as markers of an apocalyptic moment. In this cultural and political orbit, a new spatial world took shape. Violently crafted and maintained borders that locked Palestinians in and kept them out became features of quotidian life. In 1948, through a combination of expulsion and flight, around 750,000 Palestinians became refugees in neighboring Arab countries. About 100,000 Palestinians remained in their homeland. The core issue, however, is not conditions of departure but denial of an internationally recognized right of return, as elaborated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.