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Islam in an Era of Nation States: Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim South-East Asia
RoBERT W. HEFNER and PATRICIA HoRvATICH (eds), 1997 Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 352 pp., $50, ISBN 0824819012 (hardback) 338 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0824819578 (paperback)
For some time now a number of researchers and scholars working on the subject of Islamic societies and polities have debated the contentious issue of 'Islam' versus 'Islams'. Particularly in the wake of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations thesis, there has been a growing tendency among many scholars on Islam to argue that Islam and Islamic civilisation is not a homogeneous and monolithic entity. In response to the claim that the future will witness many more clashes between Muslims and non-Muslims along religio-cultural and political lines, many contemporary scholars have gone to great lengths to convince the world that there exists many other 'Islams' that lie beyond the borders of the Arab world. Islam in an Era of Nation States is a collection of essays edited by Robert W. Hefner and Patricia Horvatich which tries to do precisely that. Going against both Huntington's essentialist view of Islam as a force of aggression and Clifford Geertz's reductionist categorisation of Islam which the editors argue is too tightly drawn, the book's aim is to explore the myriad of ways through which Islamic resurgence and revival in the Southeast Asian context has led to the emergence of different 'Islams' with aspirations, concerns and characteristics that go against commonly held views in the West.
The essays themselves are varied in terms of their analytical approach, subjects of study and conclusions that are drawn from them. The contents could be summed up by the themes that are raised by the writers themselves. Central to their concerns are the issues of identity construction, formation of political identities and boundaries, the tensions between religious subjectivities and social belonging and the inevitable clash between resurgent religious movements and the state. How do Muslims become Muslims in an era where the nation state is the dominant paradigm is the central question that is being raised here. The authors have steered clear away from making any unwarranted essentialist generalisations about Islam and Muslims, preferring instead to examine particular cases through the prism of micro-analysis, on...