The Politics of Pan-Islam: Ideology and Organization

Pan-Islamic ideology, the attempt to achieve Muslim unity, takes two forms, radical (which would eliminate borders and create a single Muslim state) and moderate (which only seeks harmony between Muslim states). While providing a survey of the tensions between these two themes going back to the 1860s, Landau concentrates on several times and places: the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, Central Asian Muslims living under Moscow's rule, Indian Muslims living under London's rule, the conventions of the interwar period, and the florescence of organizations in recent years. Landau's research is impeccable and his data fascinating, yet the wooden presentation of his research makes it something of an effort to absorb.

Schulze's large, rambling, and highly original study of Islamic internationalism in the twentieth century focuses on intellectuals and learning in their historical context. His prism is the World Muslim League, a Saudi-sponsored organization founded in 1962 to fund mosques, publishing houses, cultural centers, schools, and other Islamic institutions. Whether it be attitudes toward tradition or responses to the West, Schulze sees Islamic intellectual life in this century as an elaboration of themes first developed in the eighteenth century by such groups as the Wahhabis, the Salafis, and the Neo-Salafis. Schulze has brought together a treasure of information to which he has added a great many of his own insights. Trouble is, his book lacks almost any logic of presentation, so that the reader finds himself bouncing about between centuries, countries, and topics. The effort pays off, but his book demands great diligence and stamina just to plow through the jumbled presentation.

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