Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates

86 Islam and Modernity

participated in the new political fi elds in the form of modern social movements,
despite the appeal to the past and tradition.

Questions

1. What are the features of political modernity, and what distinguishes it from pre-
   modern forms of politics?


2. Which institutions dominated the economic and political life of pre-modern Muslim
   cities, and what forms did political struggles take?


3. What roles did religion play in pre-modern urban politics? When and how did
   changes in these roles occur?


4. What transformations of political organisation and mobilisation did the advent of
   modernity bring? Give a few examples, detailing episodes of the process.


5. What were the chief features of the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire?


6. Outline explanations of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.


7. Distinguish types of modern Islamic politics in the Middle East.


8. Discuss the political aspects of transnational Islam, the militant as well as the non-
   militant varieties, in recent times. How can the turn to religion among immigrant
   youth in Western Europe be explained?

Notes

1. For an account of this hierarchy, see Gibb and Bowen (1957: 122–6) and Faroqhi
   et al. (1994: 556–61); an illustration of positions, careers and ‘nepotism’ is
   afforded by a biography of Ebussuud, the Shaykh al-Islam of Suleyman, in Imber
   (1997).


2. For an example of awqaf in an Ottoman city and its politics, see Van Leeuwen
   (1999); for accounts of awqaf in more recent times, see Bilici (ed.) (1994).


3. On judicial institutions, see Gibb and Bowen (1957: 123–37), Faroqhi et al. (1994:
   556–61) and Zubaida (2003: 60–6).


4. See the studies in Lifchez (1992); see further Birge (1937: 13–14), Barnes (1986),
   Quataert (2000: 161–3) and Zubaida (2003: 104–7).


5. Najib Mahfuz’s novel Malhamat al-harafi sh (1977) presents a vivid picture of life
   and politics in the old urban quarters, illustrating the role of local Sufi orders and
   their shaykhs in local politics.


6. See the classical study of the Mahdiyya by Holt (1970).


7. See Makdisi (2000) for an analysis of these events in Lebanon; Fawaz (1994) on
   Lebanon and Damascus.


8. On the politics of Aleppo in the eighteenth century, see Thieck (1985) and Marcus
   (1989).


9. On the economic, legal and administrative transformations in Ottoman lands, see
   Mardin (1962), Quataert (1994, 2000), Deringil (1998), Berkes ([1964] 1998) and
   Zubaida (2003: 121–57). On Iran, see Algar (1969), Keddie (1981) and Abrahamian
   (1982).


10. The classic work on the Young Ottomans and their milieu is Mardin (1962).


11. On Abdulhamid’s reign, see Deringil (1998).


12. This is part of the continuing vitality of the bazaars in Iranian cities to the present.
    See Abrahamian (1982: 432–3) and Mottahedeh (1985: 345–56).


13. On the Young Turks, or Committee for Union and Progress, see Ahmad (1969).