The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Volume 16)

by Brinkley Messick

In this innovative combination of anthropology, history, and postmodern theory, Brinkley Messick examines the changing relation of writing and authority in a Muslim society from the late nineteenth century to the present. The creation and interpretation of texts, from sacred scriptures to administrative and legal contracts, are among the fundamental ways that authority is established and maintained in a complex state. Yet few scholars have explored this process and the ways in which it changes, especially outside the Western world.

Messick brings together intensive ethnography and textual analysis from a wealth of Islamic jurisprudence, Yemeni histories, local documents. In exploring the structure and transformation of literacy, law, and statecraft in Yemen, he raises important issues that are of comparative significance for understanding political life in other Muslim and nonwestern states as well.

Genres: Nonfiction, Islam, History, Religion, Ethnography, Academia

324 pages, Hardcover

First published November 29, 1992

Reviews

[Muhammad Ma'mun · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Calligraphic State adalah buku yang luar biasa. Sebenarnya, buku ini adalah sebuah karya etnografis. Membicarakan transformasi yang dialami oleh tradisi teks di Yaman dari budaya manuskrip ke budaya cetak. Subjek yang dipilih adalah tradisi fikih. Kadang-kadang, saya membacanya sambil geleng-geleng kepala. Betapa tidak, nama-nama penulis terkemuka di Barat seperti Karl Marx, Edward Said, Michel Foucault, dan Derrida, dapat bersanding dengan rukunnya bersama al-Syafi'i, al-Rafi'i, al-Nawawi, hingga al-San'ani dari tradisi ilmiah Islam. Sebagian analisisnya mungkin berguna untuk menjelaskan latar belakang munculnya gerakan reformasi Islam dan Islamisme dewasa ini. Singkat kata, meminjam ungkapannya Talal Asad saat meninjau buku ini, karya ini benar-benar "superb"!

[Anita]

someone recommended this to me.. haven't started reading yet, but she mentioned that in the book, they talk about texts being written in swirls.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read this for years, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. This book is dense and hard to summarize: it tackles a lot of different cultural aspects of Yemen's transition to a modern bureaucratic state. The combination of historical and anthropological approaches is particularly rewarding.

[Kavya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Logocentrism sometimes revolves around the society that requires this language rather than the meaning of the word. The producer of texts is a social actor who is often male. But the society also incorporates women through other ways that a literal reading of the texts may or may not see. The women are ever present. Beautifully written book about Yemen's Ibb region.

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uses the example of early modern Yemen to argue that the concept of Sharia (Islamic Law) originally had much more fluidity than the common understanding of the term suggests.