Interpreting Islam Bandali Jawzi's Islamic Intellectual History [Hardcover]

In this book, Sonn provides the first English translation ofThe History of Intellectual Movements in Islam(1928), a seminal text of Arab modernism written by the Palestinian intellectual Bandali al-Jawzi (1871-1942). In that book, Jawzi offered the first Marxist interpretation of the history and development of Islamic thought. The continuing importance of his work lies in Jawzi's critical method of reevaluating both European orientalist and classical Muslim accounts of Islamic history. Fifty years before Edward Said's landmarkOrientalism, Jawzi identified the vested imperial interests as the weakness in both methodologies. Sonn's translation brings to life this skillful and entertaining critique of Islamic history. Her introduction places Jawzi's thought in context with both postmodern intellectuals and Muslim reformers who continue the struggle to apply Islamic principles to contemporary life.

A significant contribution to the study of Islamic intellectual history in general and Arab Marxist analysis in particular. Sonn introduces the English reader to a significant study of an important aspect of Islamic intellectual history in the modern era written by a scholar who hitherto has not been well known, even among specialists in Islamic studies. --The International Journal of Middle East Studies

Sonn's volume is more than a translation, however. In an introduction and lengthy commentary, Sonn attempts to place the work in historical context as well as to show the rather striking ways in which its views anticipate the 'neohistoricist' postmodernist perspective of more recent authors....It is a provocative and carefully crafted thesis that merits careful attention....This translation, the first ever in English, is a welcome addition to the literature on modern Arab thought and is highly recommended to all academic and public libraries concerned with the modern Middle East and Islam. --Choice

Professor lÔ