Product Description

Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this penetrating book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.

Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.

The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19046 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-03
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 200 pages

From The New Yorker
The growing clamor for a return to Sharia law in the Muslim world has often been met with alarm by the West. But Feldman remains coolheaded, placing the movement in a historical context and suggesting that its ideal of "a just legal system, one that administers the law fairly," is an understandable goal in a region dominated by unchecked oligarchies. At its heart, Sharia "aspires to be Law that applies equally to every human, great or small, ruler or ruled," Feldman writes. Of course, he argues, a radical rethinking of the classical model is in order if the system is to be implemented successfully in a contemporary Islamic state, but, if it fails, "the alternative may well be worse." The book is compelling as a theoretical exercise, but its usefulness is restricted by Feldman's failure to confront practical considerations such as the rights of women.
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Review
In a short but masterful exposition, The Fall and Rise of The Islamic State, Noah Feldman seeks to answer a question that puzzles most Western observers: Why do so many Muslims demand the 'restoration' of a legal system that most Occidentals associate with 'medieval' punishments such as amputation for theft and stoning for sexual transgressions?
(Malise Ruthven New York Review of Books )

A thoughtful meditation on the history, ideals, and revival of sharia--the divine law governing Muslim society... It is abundantly clear that fresh models of governance in some Muslim nations will be required to build genuine consensus, afford legal justice, and guarantee peace and security... Feldman predicts success for those countries which can 'develop new institutions that would find their own original and distinctive way of giving real life to the ideals of Islamic law.' ... A persuasive and readable book on a complex topic.
(Joseph Richard Preville Christian Science Monitor )

In a short, incisive and elegant book, he lays out for the non-specialist reader some of the forms that Islamic rule has taken over the centuries, while also stressing the differences between today's political Islam and previous forms of Islamic administration...Many readers may conclude that in Islam's heartland only forms of governance that incorporate Muslim values can hope to be legitimate.
(The Economist )

[A] concise and thoughtful history of the evolution of the Islamic legal system from the time of the first caliphs (the successors to the prophet Muhammad) to our own....Feldman thinks that the restoration of the authority of sharia in modern Muslim-majority nations might be the only way for them to move beyond their current democracy deficits....Feldman is not so naive as to give them a free pass. Nor does he ignore the democratic deficiencies of the two nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that have sharia as the law of the land. While saying that principles of sharia will have to become part of the constitutional fabric of modern Islamic states, he adds that this will work only if Islamists find new institutions to give life to sharia.
(Jay Tolson U.S. News & World Report )

Review
In Feldman's fascinating intellectual journey through history, Islamic law, and modern politics, you will discover the power of 'justice.' It is both the driving force behind efforts in the Arab world to democratize, constitutionalize, and modernize Islam, and a weapon for the worst kind of abuses and authoritarianism. Feldman's book works through these tensions between theology and power with consummate dispassion and scholarship.
(Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and former "New York Times" columnist )

Customer Reviews

Shell game
Noah Feldman's deeply interesting and profoundly misleading book supplies an answer to a question that must puzzle Americans who buy the argument that Islam is a religion of peace: Why do Muslim voters always turn out majorities for violent Islamist parties?
The short answer, according to Feldman, a Harvard Law professor and heavy hitter at the Council of Foreign Relations, is that misgoverned Muslims subscribe to a religion that makes much of justice, and they yearn for a return to a rule of law -- sharia -- that they believe worked in their glorious past.
You have to recognize that Feldman misrepresents the political goals of the Islamists, which he equates with the Muslim Brotherhood. In particular, he accepts the published platform statements of the various national Brotherhood parties, while ignoring their (more indicative) speeches to their adherents.
As well as to non-Muslims. The Islamists have not been shy about telling us what they intend, which does not match the anodyne statements in the party platforms.
According to Feldman, sharia offered (at a time when no other religion or political system did so) a promise of law-based government, and divine law at that. The sultans had to defer to sharia, and sharia was (by a fluke of Muslim history) the preserve of independent scholars, the ulama.
The scholars served as a counterbalance to the inherent despotism of kings, leaving Muslims satisfied that something other than mere force ruled their lives.
Right here Feldman goes off the rails. He asserts that sharia was (and is) egalitarian, at least for men, and that this contributed to the satisfaction of the populace and, so long as they were seen to be deferring to sharia, to the legitimacy of rulers.
This is false. Sharia is egalitarian only among Muslims. It requires that non-Muslims be treated as inferiors at law.
However, if, as Feldman is, you are primarily concerned with finding some constitutional framework that might replace the failed states of the majority Muslim countries, perhaps you can overlook this inconvenient truth. Whatever his motive, Feldman does overlook it.
He argues that the unintended outcome of the Tanzimat (Ottoman reform movement of the 19th century) was a disaster for the balance of political interests in Muslim states.
The independent scholars were ruined by being replaced with a written constitution. The constitution was then revoked, leaving not even a theoretical restraint on the executive.
This system of no checks and no balances, he says, carried over to the 20th century, after the last sultan departed. Thus, almost all Muslims consider themselves oppressed, their rulers illegitimate.
Instead of looking to some modern, parliamentary replacement, they look backward to the good old days, when executives were restrained by sharia.
Though pessimistic about its chances, Feldman considers this atavistic approach almost the only conceivable way that a new, stable and just constitutional framework could be arrived at in majority Muslim countries.
Since so far Islamist parties always win when elections are more or less free, the rest of the world had better learn to deal with it, he says.
But he is misleading or worse when he treats sharia as something internal to Muslims. Muslims who live in non-Muslim countries say (to pollsters and in widely distributed sermons) that they wish to live under sharia, too.
The kicker is that when they say that, they mean everybody -- not just Muslims -- must live by sharia.
Feldman concludes: "Just now, the Islamist promise of the rule of law offers the only prospect for meaningful political justice for many Muslims. If it, too, fails, the alternative may well be worse."
It's difficult to see how non-Muslims could peacefully co-exist with the success of Islamism, however.

Feldman's book based on false premise
Noah Feldman's thesis is based on a false premise; one that suggests that Muslims around the globe are clamouring for an "Islamic State".

This assumption is repudiated by the fact that in the recent elections in Pakistan, all parties propagating the establishment of Sharia based Islamic State were trounced and the centre-left PPP formed a coalition with the number two party, the centre-right ML and the secular nationalists of the ANP.

In Indonesia as well as Bangladesh, there is little appetite for the Islamists while in Iran, if the Mullahs ever permitted a fair and transparent elections, they would be wiped out. No wonder the ruling Ayatollahs vet every candidate and reject the nomination papers of any secular liberal Muslim candidate, not mentioning the impossibility of anyone from the Left seeking any public office.

And in the Arab heartland, it would take no more than one cycle of elections to ensure that Muslim Brotherhood return to the margins of society where they have historically belonged.

Very good book
The author knows exactly what he is talking about. And unlike most of the literature he is trying to discuss the issue logically and in details.
He seems to have very good understanding of the way muslims think in the East.