Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Mohammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads

by Hamid Dabashi

From the origins of Muhammad's prophetic movement through the development of Islam's principal branches to the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty, the concept of authority has been central to Islamic civilization. By examining the nature, organization, and transformation of authority over time, Dabashi conveys both continuities and disruptions inherent in the development of a new political culture. It is this process, he argues, that accounts for the fundamental patterns of authority in Islam that ultimately shaped, in dialectical interaction with external historical factors, the course of Islamic civilization.

The book begins by examining the principal characteristics of authority in pre-Islamic Arab society. Dabashi describes the imposition of the Muhammadan charismatic movement on pre-Islamic Arab culture, tracing the changes it introduced in the fabric of pre-Islamic Arabia. He examines the continuities and changes that followed, focusing on the concept of authority, and the formation of the Sunnite, Shiite, and Karajite branches of Islam as political expressions of deep cultural cleavages. For Dabashi, the formation of these branches was the inevitable outcome of the clash between pre-Islamic patterns of authority and those of the Muhammadan charismatic movement. In turn, they molded both the unity and the diversity of the emerging Islamic culture. Authority in Islam explains how this came to be.

Dabashi employs Weber's concept of charismatic authority in describing Muhammad and his mode of authority as both a model and a point of departure. His purpose is not to offer critical verification or opposition to interpretation of historical events, but to suggest a new approach to the existing literature. The book is an important contribution to political sociology as well as the study of Islamic culture and civilization. Sociologists, political scientists, and Middle Eastern specialists will find this analysis of particular value.

Genres: History, Religion, Middle East, Islam

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Born on 15 June 1951 into a working class family in the south-western city of Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province of Iran, Hamid Dabashi received his early education in his hometown and his college education in Tehran, before he moved to the United States, where he received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time.

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in his field. He has taught and delivered lectures in many North and Latin American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities. He is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University.

He has written 20 books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, comparative literature, world cinema, and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). A selected sample of his writing is co-edited by Andrew Davison and Himadeep Muppidi, The World is my Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader (Transaction 2010).
Hamid Dabashi is the Series Editor of Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World for Palgrave Macmillan. This series is putting forward a critical body of first rate scholarship on the literary and cultural production of the Islamic world from the vantage point of contemporary theoretical and hermeneutic perspectives, effectively bringing the study of Islamic literatures and cultures to the wider attention of scholars and students of world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives.
An internationally renowned cultural critic and award-winning author, his books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Danish, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.

In the context of his commitment to advancing trans-national art and independent world cinema, Hamid Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project, dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian Cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society, breaking away from the confinements of European Orientalism and American Area Studies.

A committed teacher in the past three decades, Hamid Dabashi is also a public speaker around the globe, a current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist. He has two grown-up children, Kaveh and Pardis, who are both Columbia University graduates, and he lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi, their daughter Chelgis and their son Golchin.

Reviews

[Ali Hassan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the question of authority in Islam—its nature, organization, initial changes, vicissitudes, and transformations— from the immediate background of Muhammad's prophetic movement, through his successful mission, and into the formation of the paradigmatic patterns of the Sunnite, Shi'ite, and Kharijite modes of authority. By centering on a crucial turning point of a society, this study attempts to see both the continuities and the disruptions inherent in a vast religious revolution.

[Young Eagle 于高鹰 · Rating 4 out of 5]

本质是卡里斯玛型革命领袖过世后的接班人问题，在老干部集团（逊尼派）、太子党（什叶派）和极左造反派（哈瓦利吉）之间展开了激烈的斗争。逊尼派将卡里斯玛能量导入常规化的轨道，革命被理解为“仅有一次”的事件，有利麦加商人阶层正常的经济活动，却造成前伊斯兰时代阿拉伯部落习俗的复辟。什叶派主张伊玛目权威代代相承，将卡里斯玛能量在每一代重新激活，意图永葆最初的革命热情。（“再带我们冲一次吧，侯赛因！”）哈瓦利吉则在穆斯林社群内搞“大民主”和永久革命，领袖犯一点错就立马被废，却建立不了持续的权威，只能靠纯洁性测试搞互相除籍。被阿拉伯人歧视的新皈依者（主要是波斯人，也包括黑奴、柏柏尔人等）要求践行伊斯兰教原初的平等承诺，扎堆加入什叶派与哈瓦利吉的反叛，后两者在逊尼派眼中因而显得成分混杂乃至可疑。

[Cabdullah]

Authority in islam