The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800

JONATHAN P. BERKEY, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 (Cambridge, University Press, 2003). Pp. xvi + 286 Themes in Islamic History; 2. $ 34.99 Paper

Pre-Ottoman and Ottoman

Jonathan P. Berkey's book about the gradual development and final homogenization of an Islamic identity throughout the centuries from the time of the Prophet to the beginning of westernizing reforms, first published in 2003, has already attracted the attention of several reviewers who have dealt with different aspects of the work. Consequently, the present review is specifically a commentary on some of Berkey's findings in chapter 4, "Medieval Islam 1000-1500," and in the epilogue concerning the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period.

The first three chapters of the book deal successively with the Near East before Islam, the emergence of Islam between 600 and 750, and the consolidation of Islam from 750 to 1000. In the fourth chapter, Berkey analyzes how in a time of political fragmentation Islam developed new patterns of religious authority, affiliation, and relationship that were to be the foundations of the future Ottoman and Safavid empires and would shape the Islamic identities of the Muslims of the modern period. Characteristic features of the medieval period were "a creative tension" (p. 184) between religious and political authorities and the persistence, despite the political fragmentation, of a certain cosmopolitism based on common religious patterns that culminated in a homogenization or "re-centering" of Sunni religious life.

For analytical purposes Berkey differentiated three sections of Muslim religious life, namely, the Islam of the orthodox scholars (ulama and fuqaha), Sufism, and popular religion. The appropriateness of this division has already been questioned by reviewer Nelly Amri. Her objections, mainly based on material from North Africa, can be applied to the Ottoman Empire in general: Rather than treating separately high and popular culture, or the Islam of mystics and of orthodox scholars, it seems more adequate to speak of a common, shared culture in which all Sunni Muslims participated in different ways.

Pervading chapter 4 is a contradiction between Berkey's notion of Islam's "recentering" and "homogenization" as "a process through which Muslim scholars and others strove to eliminate various sources of contention within the Islamic community" (p. 189), on the one hand,...