Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly Exposition of Broad Currents in Muslim Thought
Review: Based on the review from "reader in D.C", I think "reader" stopped after the first page of the introduction. The book isn't about loudspeakers in Turkey. Rippin lays out descriptions of different trends in contemporary Muslim thought (Modernist, Traditionist, and Radical Islamist [or "fundamentalist"--altho' he describes limitations in using that term]). He also warns against, e.g., dangers in the traditional "orientalist" approach that Edward Said has gotten so much mileage out of decrying. Normally I would've given four stars [Rip isn't exactly a feather-light prose stylist], but am giving five to balance "reader from D.C", who seems to have read the book he expected rather than the one written. Maybe he just doesn't like Rippin?

Rating:
Summary: Please See My Review [Mistakenly] Posted to Volume One
Review: I accidentally posted my review of Vol. 2 on the Vol. 1 site. "Reader from DC" seems to have deliberately done the same even tho' he's attacking something from the Intro to Vol. 2, hence my confusion. Will post an actual review for vol. 1 once I've read it...

Rating:
Summary: Ideologically-oriented, based on selective data.
Review: This volume, along with the previous one, is too acadamic and ideologically-oriented in the way it presents Islamic religious beliefs and practices. From the outset, it advances the argument that Muslim practices are not consistent with the requirements of modern life. The author's proof for this is a tourist-like, first impression of life in another country. He visited the Muslim-majority country of Turkey and noticed that in the early morning hours mosques use loudspeakers to transmit the adhan (call to prayer).

In fact such a practice, which hardly represents the core of Islamic rituals, can be found in places like Dearborn, Michigan and Washington, D.C. in the United States, where a growing Muslim community is thriving in this most "modern" of all countries.

Thre thrust of the book is not to explain Islamic religious practices and what they mean to Muslims, but to follow an outmoded tradition of orientalist research. This type of inquiry is tension-ridden, based on a selective use of the data.