BASSAM TIBI, Islam between Culture and Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2001). Pp. 288. $68.00 cloth; 19.95 paper.

Extract

The word “between,” in the title of this book also occurs in a dozen of its chapter headings to underline a host of Islam's other unavoidable and unenviable choices between “past and present,” “ belief and reality,” “divine law and spirituality,” “secularization and de-secularization,” “modernity and neo-absolutism,” and so on. Bassam Tibi is himself an in-between observer, not merely because he is a naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin who currently resides in the United States, but mainly because he straddles the disciplines of international relations, Middle East studies, anthropology, and sociology. Based on a unique, interdisciplinary grid of social sciences, Tibi's narrative of Islam in the modern world flows with the confidence of a native's account.