Remembering Nehemia: Personal Tributes

Four colleagues and friends of Nehemia Levtzion offer personal reminiscences. Roland Oliver remembers the young Arabist graduate student he met at SOAS and later encountered doing research in the field in the early 1960s. He remarks upon the important step Levtzion was taking in moving out of the comfortable Maghrebian field in which Arabists normally settled and venturing into sub-Saharan Ghana. William Miles reflects on Levtzion as a bridge between two major worlds of scholarship: African history and Jewish studies. In Israel, he promoted respectful learning of Muslim civilization by Jewish scholars and institutions of higher learning; globally, he promoted respectful learning of Jewish civilization. Naomi Chazan also remembers Levtzion as the shaper, guide and moving spirit behind African studies in Israel since its inception in the mid-1960s. Re-tracing his work and his leadership is a tribute to a scholar of vision and integrity and, at the same time, a history of the construction of an academic field in Israel. E. Ann McDougall’s memories of Levtzion are inextricably intertwined with formative moments in her personal and professional lives. Most important is the influence that he exerted on her thinking about the Sahara, Saharan-Sahelian relations and Islam through ongoing debate and challenge.     

Engaging with the Legacy of Nehemia Levtzion: An Introduction

This volume draws principally on presentations from two African Studies Association meetings (2003, 2004) that celebrated Nehemia Levtzion’s contributions to the field of Islam in Africa and reminisced about our collective personal interactions with him. It is enriched by additional papers from former students, colleagues and friends (usually one and the same), as well as from contemporary young scholars just beginning to “know” Levtzion through his legacy. The “Epilogue” gives a final, posthumous word to Levtzion himself, in an article looking at the contemporary role of fundamentalism from the perspective of an historian who spent his life engaged in the history of Islam at its Middle Eastern and African crossroads. The following pages are meant not only to pay homage to Nehemia Levtzion but also to reflect critically, to push boundaries, and to introduce Africanist scholars, engaged in other areas of study and new generations of Africanist scholars in this field, to Levtzion’s role in shaping how we have come to understand the experience of Islam in Africa.     

Hidden in the Household: Gender and Class in the Study of Islam in Africa

The household, if understood in a dynamic multi-status, multi-generational, multi-cultural, “gendered” way, can provide a conceptual framework for reinterpreting practices, processes, and patterns of Islamization in Africa. This framework contrasts with the one privileged in literature that focuses on the agency of traders, clerics and chiefs in public institutions. It reminds us that they “lived Islam” next to their mothers, wives, sisters, and slaves in households. This preliminary exploration of women and slaves usually seen as marginal to Islamization is intended to challenge extant perceptions: women and slaves were not only “recipients” of Islam but its agents. In their households, they shaped how Islam was lived by all around them. So instead of looking only at the history of more public Islamic people and places, addressing attention to the household and its changing nature over time may allow us to see a different face of Islam and different process of Islamization.     

The perspective of multi-religious Society on Islamization policy in Malaysia

Support for Islam has often been described as part of the Malaysian government’s drive for Islamization, commonly known as ‘Islamization policy’. The concept of an ‘Islamization policy’ is contested, open to various interpretations since it is not officially defined in any government blueprint. This paper highlights the perspectives of a number of religious groups on Islamization policy. The study covered the period from 1981 until 2009, which includes the Mahathir Mohamed and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administrations. Using a policy analysis lens, the paper focuses on the perspective of the groups regarding the idea of Islamization as a public policy; the meaning and status of Islamization policy. The patterns indicate that the views are more complex than just ‘for’ and ‘against,’ although the patterns of perception are based on two divergent views: those who support the policy (the proponents) and those who oppose it (the opponents). This diversity is significant in that it helps to provide a better understanding of some multi-religious perspectives towards Islamization policy, as well as highlighting the different interests and concerns of both Muslim and non-Muslim communities towards the policy.     

The Legacy of Nehemia Levtzion 1935–2003

The scholarly work of Nehemia Levtzion, published in a variety of books and articles, has been widely acclaimed by scholars and students of Islam…. Nehemia Levtzion was a modest man who was reluctant to talk about himself. At his 60th birthday celebration in 1995, however, when asked to speak to friends and family about his life, he gave the following account (translated from Hebrew), which sums up his life story.     

The Islamic Awakening's Second Wave

Hassan al-Turabi, often referred to as the most significant Muslim cleric since Ayatollah Khomeini, had a central influence during the 1990s on the rise of Sunni Islamist movements across the Middle East and North Africa. He was a mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri and had a close personal relationship with Osama bin Laden, sponsoring his presence in Sudan before the Al Qaeda leader fled to Afghanistan. Al-Turabi was the ideological force behind the coup led by Omar al-Bashir, with whom he has since fallen out, that brought Islamists to power in Sudan in 1989. As an opposition leader al-Turabi has been in and out of jail for years, most recently over the issue of Darfur.
The soft-spoken philosopher of Islam sat down with me for a lengthy and candid discussion in the summer of 1992. We met in a dilapidated townhouse near DuPont Circle in Washington, where he had come, as it turned out without success, to repair relations with the United States.     

“Islamic Music in Africa” as a Tool for African Studies

Suitably interpreted, “Islamic music in Africa” provides African Studies with a useful analytical tool for probing the relation between affective individual experience and the social structures, values, and cultural concepts which music both reflects and supports in Muslim areas. Nondiscursive Islamic musical diversity has facilitated Islamic expansion by enabling affectively powerful adaptations to local socio-cultural conditions. The sonic practices of Islam constitute central sites for the affectively charged social production of Islam, as locally inflected, and for the contestation of Muslim identity and norms. The diversity of Islamic music also reflects a rich history of cultural interactions, as music is a sensitive barometer of social and historical conditions. Yet diffusions have bestowed a certain musical consistency as well, linking sound practices over vast distances, and underpinning common feelings of Muslim cultural identity in Africa.     

Captain of “We Band of Brothers”: An Archaeologist’s Homage to Nehemia Levtzion

By inviting archaeologists to collaborate in the revision of his beloved Ancient Ghana and Mali, Nehemia Levtzion confronted the oft-assumed, yet-rarely tested asymmetry in explanatory power between documentary history and archaeology. Others have treated prehistorians as, at best, handmaidens and, at worse, scientific parvenus. Levtzion explicitly rejected several assumptions that render many histories of pre-colonial Africa uninteresting to prehistorians: (1) that that the data of archaeology provide, at best, background and context, (2) that the hierarchical state is the only viable integrative structure when peoples become stratified economically or politically, and (3) that culture change in Africa simply replicates patterns already known from elsewhere, and no others. Levtzion enlisted a plural force of specialists, a “Band of Brothers,” to continue his Good Fight against those who would distain Africa’s accomplishments.     

Breaking New Ground in Pagan” and “Muslim” West Africa

Nehemia Levtzion had a long and distinguished career as an interpreter of Islam in West Africa, and some of his earliest contributions have the greatest value. This article explores first, the continuing significance of Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa (1968), an analysis of communities and states set in the “pagan” Middle Belt of Ghana, and second, a forgery of Arabic documents with important political implications for the jihad and state of Hamdullahi created in the Middle Delta of Mali, in “A Seventeenth Century Chronicle of Ibn al-Mukhtar” (1971).     

Islamization in Malaysia: processes and dynamics

Over the past three decades Malaysian society has undergone radical change and transformation. On one level this has been brought about by the country's rapid economic transformation, but equally significant has been the deepening Islamization of the country. From banking to law, from dress to education policy, almost no sector of Malaysian society has escaped the growing influence of Islam upon the socioeconomic and political make-up of the country. The prevalent explanation for this dynamic has been the political competition between the United Malay National Organization and the Islamic opposition party, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, since the early 1980s. Such explanations, however, clearly marginalize the role of other societal factors and dynamics. Consequently, this article contends Islamization in Malaysia has created a series of processes that have produced results which are self-reinforcing. Ironically, the strategy for diverting the extremes of Islamic revival by co-option has actually produced a far more dynamic penetration of state and society by conservative Muslims who have become a powerful constituency supportive of the further religious coloration of government bureaucracies and programmes.     

Missing the Third Wave: Islam,Institutions, and Democracy in the Middle East

This article explores why some societies witnessed less political liberalization during the Third Wave of democratization than others, and importantly, the conditions under which opposition forces may refrain from pressing for political reform. Focusing on the Muslim world, it also presents a more complete understanding of when and how political Islam hinders democratization. Specifically, historical experiences with Islamists in the 1970s and institutional structures established by the 1980s created a condition of uncertainty that enabled some incumbents to thwart liberalization during the Third Wave. Incumbents exploited the fear of political Islam, convincing many secularist opponents that they were better off with the current regime than with Islamist rule. The extent to which incumbents could succeed varied, depending on whether or not Islamist movements had been allowed to mobilize openly and the extent that the regime based its legitimacy on Islam. The argument extends beyond the Muslim world. What is fundamentally at stake is not whether Islam exists as a mobilizing ideology, but whether democratically-minded opponents believe that non-democratic opposition groups exist that would potentially subvert a democratic opening.     

Politically Engaged Muslims in Malaysia in the Era of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (2003–2009)

Long regarded as an embodiment of tolerant Islam and peacefully co-existing with modernisation within a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, Malaysia unexpectedly aroused much attention as a potential breeding ground for Muslim radicals in the aftermath of catalytic events which pitted the West against the Muslim world. Malaysian Muslims are said to be susceptible to Middle Eastern-originated radicalism, as exemplified in interlocking transnational contacts and agendas sowed between increasingly globalised Muslim networks adept in exploiting latest trappings of modernity. This article urges readers to engage in deeper reflection on the local dynamics of Malaysia's Islamisation process, in order to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of challenges posed by politically engaged Muslims in Malaysia. It is argued that, belying the regime's profession of a progressive Islam known as Islam Hadhari, Malaysia under Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Premiership witnessed an abrupt escalation of inter-religious tension which not only threatened to disrupt communal harmony and nation-building, but also posed a security risk. The origins of such instability could arguably be located to the peculiar manner in which politically-laden Islam is applied by the regime, in particular by its home-nurtured Islamic bureaucracy.     

Refugees,Islam, and the State: The Role of Religion in Providing Sanctuary in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Malaysia has a mixed track record in providing Muslims with refuge, yet it increasingly lays claim to being an Islamic country. This article charts a history of the refugee engagement Malaysia has had based mainly on a shared regional and/or shared religious affiliation (Sunni Islam). I argue that the recent Malaysian history of refugee treatment presents a case for Muslim solidarity, but one tempered by a prevalent racism in Malaysia against people from the Indian subcontinent. Nonetheless, Islam provides an alternative history for providing protection to people in need. The UNHCR has pursued this approach in Muslim majority countries that are not signatories to the refugee convention in the hope of carving out a complementary protection space based on Islamic law and practice. This article traces these attempts and situates them within the Malaysian sociopolitical terrain, drawing out the possibilities and limits to such an approach.     

Islam Is a European Religion

To the shock of the world, the mild‐mannered Swiss have acted the most radically of any European country out of fear of Muslim immigrants by banning minarets. Was this a blow against tolerance, or for it? Is Islam a European religion, or is Europe a Christian club? Meanwhile, as Turkey becomes more confident in its regional power and Muslim identity it is shaking up some old friends. In this section, two of Europe's most prominent Muslim voices, the foreign minister of Sweden and a top Turkish official try to sort it out.     

Israel Should Get Used to the New Turkey

To the shock of the world, the mild‐mannered Swiss have acted the most radically of any European country out of fear of Muslim immigrants by banning minarets. Was this a blow against tolerance, or for it? Is Islam a European religion, or is Europe a Christian club? Meanwhile, as Turkey becomes more confident in its regional power and Muslim identity it is shaking up some old friends. In this section, two of Europe's most prominent Muslim voices, the foreign minister of Sweden and a top Turkish official try to sort it out.     

Europe 3.0—Bring Turkey In

To the shock of the world, the mild‐mannered Swiss have acted the most radically of any European country out of fear of Muslim immigrants by banning minarets. Was this a blow against tolerance, or for it? Is Islam a European religion, or is Europe a Christian club? Meanwhile, as Turkey becomes more confident in its regional power and Muslim identity it is shaking up some old friends. In this section, two of Europe's most prominent Muslim voices, the foreign minister of Sweden and a top Turkish official try to sort it out.     

Minaret Ban Is a Blow for Tolerance

To the shock of the world, the mild‐mannered Swiss have acted the most radically of any European country out of fear of Muslim immigrants by banning minarets. Was this a blow against tolerance, or for it? Is Islam a European religion, or is Europe a Christian club? Meanwhile, as Turkey becomes more confident in its regional power and Muslim identity it is shaking up some old friends. In this section, two of Europe's most prominent Muslim voices, the foreign minister of Sweden and a top Turkish official try to sort it out.     

Australia's Handling of Tensions between Islam and the West under the Howard Government

This article examines the impact of international conflicts involving the Muslim world upon Australia's multicultural society by studying the Howard government's responses to tensions between Islam and the West since September 11. Specifically, it surveys the Howard government's participation in the ‘War on Terror’, other aspects of Australia's foreign and security policies, including the relationship with the United States, the emergence of immigration and refugee flows as national security issues, and the subsequent impact of all this on multiculturalism and in particular on Australia's Muslim community. At a broader level, the article challenges the argument that foreign policy is inconsequential for social policy, intercommunal, inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations. The internalization of the ‘War on Terror’ has reinforced a negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims in Australia by blurring the dividing line between ‘Islam’ on the one hand and ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism’ on the other. The evidence suggests that government statements and policies, more generally had provoked apprehension amongst a wide cross-section of the Australian Muslim community. A major finding of this article is that unless care is taken, it is not inconceivable that the hitherto harmonious relationship between Muslims and other sections of Australia's community could be unnecessarily endangered.     

Reconceptualizing Early Ghana

At the time of his death, Nehemia Levtzion had initiated a project to revise Ancient Ghana and Mali in the light of new scholarship since its original publication in 1973. He proposed that the question of origins and early development of Sudanic polities such as Ghana should be thoroughly reconsidered with regard to findings from research in archaeology and related disciplines. In this article, I discuss four topics (climate variability, sedentary-mobile interactions; external / internal dynamics; and organizational variability) central to Levtzion’s 1973 account of Ghana’s origins and the implications of research results to date for our understanding of early political consolidation in the Sahel.