Before Dale F. Eickelman, the study of Islamic societies was largely the domain of the Orientalists. Those towering old world figures – Caetani, Levi Della Vida, Margoliouth – loom large in the backdrop of Dale’s first mature work, an inventive, anthropological study of the pretender Musaylima’s failed mission in seventh century central Arabia (Eickelman 1967). To that venerable trade and remote time and place, Dale brought a gnawing sense of the dynamism of historical change and social transformation. Musaylima failed, Dale argued, because his message could not transcend his own tribal kin group, the Bani Tamim, whereas Muhammad’s message did. The theological rupture with the past, he insisted, did not dictate a comparable social rupture in every instance. Ideas matter, but how and why they matter can be understood only within a specific context, one rendered intelligible through mastery of the language of the locale and intensive engagement with its residents, however many centuries separate them from the object of scholarly inquiry. In “Musaylima” we see the first evidence of Dale’s capacity for crisp argumentation and narrative (a Midwestern trait?), his synthesizing of diverse concerns and interests, and, most importantly, his creative ambitions. Drawing links between Arabia past and present, we also observe the scholar’s first encounter with the question of knowledge, authority, and change in Muslim societies, that is, the first outlines of a conceptual framework that would so influence the fields of anthropology and Middle East studies.
Dale moved swiftly out of the seventh century and into the world of modern Muslim learning and knowledge production in North Africa. In this he followed Clifford Geertz, but more explicitly the great French ethnographer and colonial administrator, Jacques Berque (d. 1995). Eickelman lauded Berque for almost singlehandedly preserving – against the euphoric attractions of modernization – scholarly interest in styles of contemporary Muslim learning in North Africa. For Dale, Berque’s iconoclastic scholarly tastes enabled an historically informed approach to the study of religious education in North Africa. When the world was clamoring for new knowledge on such topics in the wake of the Iranian revolution of 1979, Dale was able to map that uncharted space with nuance, clarity, and contrast – the stuff of great scholarship. In his obituary for Berque, Dale took further inspiration from the French scholar’s efforts “to break down the barriers to international scholarly communication” (Eickelman 1995: 150). It is hoped that the present volume, which includes contributions from Pakistan, Morocco, Israel, France, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, serves as a fitting tribute to Dale and to his own commitment to global scholarly communion.
Eickelman combined Jack Goody and Benedict Anderson’s groundbreaking theoretical paradigms with the linguistic facility and bibliophilia of the major Orientalists. He then wrapped this new synthesis in Geertz’s ethnographic focus and ambition to produce one of the most influential bodies of work in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, as well as in his core discipline of anthropology – and he is by no means done yet. By concerning himself not only with Islamic texts, but with the economy and social life of their production, Dale helped establish a method for the anthropological study of Islamic societies. The study of Muslim societies demanded this kind of social science – in the postcolonial era, the Islamic world could not remain the exclusive domain of philologists and linguists. But social science, and anthropology in particular, needed Islam, too – Dale’s work continues to call attention to the fact that the symbols, rituals and social practices of a significant proportion of the non-Western world are tied inextricably to a moment of scriptural revelation. That relationship between scriptural proof text and everyday culture was described famously by Talal Asad as a discursive tradition. Dale’s later work demonstrates how changes in the technologies of communication and the structures of religious authority in Muslim societies altered the parameters of this discursive tradition, leading to changes in the very meaning and understanding of Islam itself.
The carriers of religious knowledge will increasingly be anyone who can claim a strong Islamic commitment, as is the case among many of the educated urban youth. Freed from mnemonic domination, religious knowledge can be delineated and interpreted in a more abstract and flexible fashion. A long apprenticeship under an established man of learning is no longer a necessary prerequisite to legitimizing one’s own religious knowledge. Printed and mimeographed tracts and the clandestine dissemination of ‘lessons’ on cassettes have begun to replace the mosque as the center for disseminating visions of Islam that challenge those offered by the state.
The fragmentation of Muslim religious authority (Eickelman and Piscatori 1996), augmented by the incursions of new media (Eickelman and Anderson 2003), have produced myriad new expressions of Muslim religiosity. From American female imams to aspiring jihadist caliphs, Dale has given us a framework for making coherent sense of these changes. His contributions to anthropology, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, and the broader humanities and social sciences are recognized by a diverse and eclectic group of scholars within those disciplines. If there is one thing about which the wide spectrum of opinion in those associated fields can agree, it is the excellence of Dale, and the worthiness of his legacy.
Nadav Samin
Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore
References
Eickelman, Dale F. (1967). Musaylima: An Approach to the Social Anthropology of Seventh Century Arabia. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 10 (1): 17–52.
Eickelman, Dale F. (1985) Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of a Twentieth-Century Notable .Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Eickelman, Dale F. (1995). Jacques Berque (1910–1995). MESA Bulletin 29: 149–50.
Eickelman, Dale F. and Jon W. Anderson Eds. (2003). New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2nd edn.
Eickelman, Dale F. and James Piscatori (1996). Muslim Politics .Princeton: Princeton University Press.