A. Kevin Reinhart - Lived Islam

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For

Arthur S. Reinhart

Hilma H. R. Reinhart

John Alden Williams

Wilfred Cantwell Smith

Difference among my community is a mercy

Attributed to the Prophet Muammad

This book is an essay in the literal sense of the word. It also tries, in a modest way, to be a manifesto. Lived Islam is an attempt more carefully to describe what we ought to mean when we use the term Islam. While this book claims to describe the situation of Islam as a whole, it subverts itself by pointing to the immeasurable variety of Islam in the world. The book is primarily intended to call attention to the dirty little secret of current Islamic studies namely that, to the extent we speak of or teach about Islam as a whole, we have been party to a crypto-theological enterprise, and that in fact Islam as a phenomenon is much richer than can ever be embraced in our Introduction to Islam courses. It is also a mild and fraternal critique of the work of those who undertake to describe Islam as a lived phenomenon without coming to terms with the full complexity of what they undertake to study. And finally, it is an attempt to provide a model, a heuristic, for talking about the intricate variations of Islam (and perhaps other religions) in a theoretical way. Mine is a model derived from sociolinguistics; other models may be proposed. Perhaps the most valuable works are those that, in the process of being critiqued, bring clarity to a field. This work is above all an invitation to critique.

It is a pleasant duty to thank many friends and colleagues with whose help, in various ways over the many years, this book has, in fits and starts, been written. These ideas have been presented in lecture form at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith College, the University of California at San Diego, the Alliance of Civilizations Institute of Fatih Sultan Mehmet University, and at the Religion Department Colloquium at Dartmouth College, and for this I thank Everett Rowson, Keith Lewinstein, Hasan Kayal, and their faculty colleagues, Bruce Lawrence and miriam cooke, as well as my own colleagues, particularly those in the Religion Department here at Dartmouth College.

Tracey Maher meticulously copy edited a version of the manuscript. Her eagle eye caught many inconsistencies and failures of clarity. Meredith Wilson, somewhat later, was equally astute and meticulous. I am very grateful for their help. Subsequently the book was read and insightfully commented upon by Maimuna Huq. Linda George and Megan Clark copy edited with discernment and taste. Bruce Lawrence and miriam cooke read chapters of the work, and provided encouragement and helpful critical insight. Patsy Carter, former doyenne of Dartmouths ILL department, was practically a collaborator on the early stages of this book so many interlibrary loans did she provide for me. She was the spirit of Baker Library and I miss her help and good nature. Bill Fontaine, also of Baker Library, suffered under a barrage of inquiries about books in our collection, books we do not have in our collection, the location of books mis-shelved in our collection, and so on. His patience was a lesson to me.

Students at Dartmouth, particularly in the seminar Local Varieties of Islam, helped to stimulate my thinking on these matters. Thanks to Elise Welford, Barbara Seniawski, Clare Choo, and the late Cheryl Pinkerton a promising and much-lamented student of Middle East studies from that seminar. Barbara Seniawski later wrote an excellent senior thesis provoked by this model. I have profited from that, and from my discussions with her over the years. Dale Eickelman organized a conference where I first tried to think through (not very clearly) these issues; Clifford Geertz was a charitable and stimulating commentator on that rather murky paper. Ellis Goldberg brought his deep knowledge of contemporary Arab Islam to bear on a very early draft of this argument, and offered important critiques and encouragement. David McMurry was very important in thinking about the issues in the chapter on modern Islam; I had to revise my argument substantially in response to his helpful criticism. Brian Didier was a stimulating colleague and kindly read a chapter when I was in the slough of despond. Above all, James Laine has encouraged this project, suggesting that it has merit not just for Islamic studies but for the study of Religion. His enthusiasm has kept me going when my focus has flagged.