Destiny Disrupted

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the Church and to continue to minister, something she has struggled with herself. Chapter  11  by Elaine Wainwright tells of the author’s reading and re[-]membering of  Schu¨ ssler Fiorenza’s  In Memory of Her , a work that would become her ‘map for the  journey [she] was embarking on as a feminist biblical scholar’ (p. 161); while Lisa Isherwood also recounts a journey, her journey with John’s Gospel that provided her  with a starting point for her study of mysticism. And lastly, Yvonne Sherwood and Lesley Orr re-read the Book of Hosea. Sherwood writes from the stance of a biblical scholar who asserts that she ‘became a feminist not by reading feminist criticism and theology’ theol ogy’ but rathe ratherr by reading the Bible Bible,, speci specifical fically ly Hosea. Lesley Orr, on the other  hand, comes to Hosea from the perspective of one who works with abused women and ask askss pro provoc vocati ativel vely y whe whethe therr it is cou counte nter-i r-intui ntuitiv tivee for wom women en to con contin tinue ue to wrestle ‘to find constructive readings of texts like Hosea’. She suggests that perhaps in this case it may be ‘necessary to betray the Bible’ (p. 203). Scholars of theological and biblical studies will enjoy gaining insight into the personal, son al, the theolo ologic gical al and pol politi itical cal mot motiva ivatio tions ns of the their ir col collea league gues. s. But the vol volume ume’s ’s reader rea dershi ship p nee need d not be lim limite ited d to the few few:: stu studen dents, ts, lay people—l people—love overs rs of book bookss generally—will find something of interest here. And no doubt many will be inspired to read, or perhaps re-read, one of the texts that changed the life of another. doi:10.1093/litthe/frq053 Advance Access publication 10  November   2010

DARLENE DARL ENE L.   BIRD

University of Glasgow 

Tami min n Destin Dest inyy Di Disr srup upte ted: d: A Hi Hist stor oryy of th thee Wo Worl rldd Th Thro roug ughh Is Isla lami micc Ey Eyes es..   By Ta Ansary. New York: PublicAffairs,   2010. xxii + 390  pp. $26.95. The past decade has seen a marked rise in interest in Islam both within and outside of  the academy. Tamim Ansary has noted this niche market and accommodated accordingly. Destiny ingly.  Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes  is prefaced with an important condition. Ansary, an Afghan-American, openly admits that he is neither a scholar nor is the work to be considered a thesis, rather his aim is to tell a ‘story’ and ‘convey what Muslims   think   happened, because that’s what has motivated Muslims over the ages and what makes their role in world history intelligible’ (p. xxi). That said, however, he is an author and public speaker and such qualities are reflected in his engagingly accessible writing style. The chapters are mostly short in length although with a period of some   1400  years to cover, they would need to be. Chapters One to Six chart the coming and spread of Islam up to the Abbasid Period and, as such, are primarily political and social in nature. Chapter Seven charts the development of Muslim doctrine with a noticeable emphasis on the social classes it create cre ated d and the her hermen meneut eutica icall and pol politi itical cal ten tensio sions ns tha thatt aro arose se bet betwee ween n the them. m. It includes the rise and significance of the law schools, the Mu’tazilite-Asharite debates and Al-Ghazali. Chapter eight explores the gradual fracturing of the Islamic Empire in 1095  CE and posits that, on the eve of the First Crusade, the Levant the period 737 – 1095 was politically atomised with ‘practically every city end[ing] up in the hands of a different prince’ (p. 132). Chapter nine describes two ‘havocs’ (p. 133) that troubled 1381  CE; specifically, the Crusader and Mongol invasions. Islam in the period   1081 – 1381 Chapter Ten posits the uncertainty felt within Islamic mindsets following the Mongol

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invasions and presents various divergent Muslim responses such as Ibn Taymiyah’s ‘literalist and restrictive’ ideology and the ‘efflorescence’ of a ‘broad-minded and undogmatic’ Sufism (p. 165). Ansary then gives a brief presentation of the formation and nature of the Ottoman, Safavid and Moghul Empires until around   1600 CE Chapters Eleven to Seventeen explore the effect on, and response from, the Islamic world in relation to European economic and colonial expansion. Of particular interest is Chapter Thirteen which explores intellectual reform movements within Islam. Interestingly, Ansary is of the opinion that these reform movements would have occurred regardless of European involvement because Islam had become bureaucratised (p.  248 ). However, that said, ‘without [the Europeans] in the picture, the Muslim reform movements might well have taken a different course’ (p. 248). Ansary identifies three dominant reform movement positions: Muslims needed to return to ‘true’ Islam and shun innovations that had crept in; Muslims need to ‘modernise their faith along Western lines’ (p.  251 ) and rethink ‘Islam as an ethical system’ (p.  251 ); Muslims need to modernise and learn from the West but can do so in a ‘distinctively Muslim way’ (p. 251). Ansary typifies each response by describing the positions of Adul Wahhab, Sayyid Ahmad and Sayyid Jamaluddin-i-Afghan. The positions represented by these thinkers surface again in Chapter Seventeen in response to secular modernist projects. Finally, the book contains an ‘Afterword’ that speculates on ideological differences that have persisted, come to light or been exploited since 9/11. For  Ansary, this period of history ‘has not mulched down enough to enter history yet: it still belongs to journalists’ (p. 349). The book is a remarkably diverse historical and geographical overview of Ansary’s understanding of Islamic history. However, as with all such ambitious endeavours, time and space restrictions (and common sense) limit subject inclusion and depth of  comment. Ansary’s interest and passion for the subject are clearly detectable throughout and his, at times, imaginative retelling of some historical instances show a hint of  historical nostalgia. His style is accessible and he is not afraid to lean towards the colloquial. For example, his retelling of an Arab-Sassanid battle reads like a piece of  fiction (pp. 44 – 46). However, while such episodes are not the dominant manner of  discourse, they do serve to illustrate his points in a lively and memorable manner. Nonetheless, there are areas of potential frustration beyond style. For example, given the significance of the Qur’an in Islam, I was surprised that Othman’s authorising of a definitive version of the Qur’an (and therefore destruction of competing versions) received only a fleetingly brief paragraph (pp.  55  and 56; brief mention also on p. 93). One would suspect this might be one example of something which a non-Muslim audience unfamiliar with Islamic historical perspectives might be interested to hear  more about. Additionally, Ansary has a tendency at times to ‘fudge’ dates and anachronistically apply contemporary or subsequent understandings prior to them being historically applicable. For example, in exploring the Crusades, Ansary states, Muslims did not ‘cast the wars as an epic struggle between Islam and Christendom —that was the story line the Crusaders saw’ (p. 148). Ansary here generalises a roughly 200  year  period of history—which struggles, which crusades? Certainly Christendom   did not  cast the initial  crusades in the story line that Ansary advocates. His own presentation of  Crusader-Muslim alliances against  other Muslims (which he says ‘was typical’ (p. 142)) suggests that political aspirations were primary. Indeed, authors such R.W. Southern have illustrated that Christendom was largely ignorant of Islam prior to the First

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Crusade. Therefore, the likelihood of Christendom framing,  at least the First Crusade , in terms of an epic battle with Islam is close to nil. Similarly, Ansary’s statement that Pope Urban II ‘decreed that anyone who went to Jerusalem to   kill Muslims  would receive partial remissions of his sins’ (p. 137, emphasis added) reflects an anachronistic and simplistic reading of the various existing accounts of the speech. Equally, Ansary comments in a later historical period that: on June 5 [1967], without warning, Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria simultaneously. ‘Without Warning’ should be uttered with an asterisk here: Arab-Israeli tension had been ratcheting up for months (p. 329). Such a statement seems to absolve the military posturing of Arab nations in the run up to the   1967   Arab–Israeli War under the rather opaque term ‘tension’. Having picked out these illustrative points of frustration, Ansary can equally counter (as he openly states in his introduction) that he is presenting a historical   story   of ‘what Muslims   think  happened, because that’s what has motivated Muslims over the ages and what makes their role in world history intelligible’ (p. xxi). For this very reason, the book is a useful non-academic guide into Ansary’s understanding of a historical narrative that many non-Muslims, both within and out-with the academy, may be unfamiliar with. However, for more serious critical studies that go beyond popular  introductory overviews, this book will be found lacking. doi:10.1093/litthe/frq054 Advance Access publication 9  November   2010

ANTHONY ALLISON

University of Glasgow 

 Joseph’s Dilemma: ‘Honour Killing’ in the Birth Narrative of Matthew . By Matthew  J. Marohl. Cambridge: James Clark & Co.,   2008. 85  pp., 12.99. What to say about Joseph, the husband of Mary, is a perennial dilemma for preachers, theologians and ordinary Christians. His character is sketched in minimal terms by the authors of Matthew, Luke and John, and he features nowhere else in the New Testament. Yet the identity of Jesus as the ‘son of Joseph’ was at least significant for some of his audience (Mt. 13:55; Lk. 4:22; Jn. 1:45; 6:42), and the importance of Joseph in the early life of Jesus is clear from the early sections of Matthew and Luke (Mt. 1:16, 18 – 25; 2:13 – 15, 19 – 23; Lk. 2:4 – 5, 27, 33, 41 – 51). New Testament scholar Matthew J. Marohl centres his reading of Joseph on Matthew 1:19, which depicts Joseph’s reaction to the news of Mary’s unexpected pregnancy: ‘Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her  to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly’ (NRSV). Joseph of course does not dismiss Mary quietly, because an angel informs him in a dream that the child has been divinely conceived (1:20 – 21). Marohl’s primary concern is to identify the cultural context of what he calls ‘Joseph’s dilemma’, in particular what ‘public disgrace’ was risked by divorce. In a sharp departure from other modern interpreters, Marohl argues that Mary may have suffered an adulterer’s death at the hands of her family if Joseph had not married her.

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