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Named 1995 Best First Book in the History of Religions (American Academy of Religion)
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Winner of the 1995 Albert Hourani Book Award (Middle East Studies Association)
The first major study of conversion to Islam in Inner Asia, among
peoples until recently part of the Soviet Union, and its role in
the shaping of communal self-understanding from the fourteenth to
the twentieth centuries.
"This is a whale of a book, not only because of its size. Its geographical
and chronological scope are vast, and it combines great philological
skill with considerable conceptual sophistication. . . . This is
a profound and important book whose arguments and conclusions are
on the whole convincing. This is truly a groundbreaking study and
as such can be recommended to a wide audience."—International
Journal of Middle East Studies
"This is an epic book. With it, DeWeese has opened up whole new
vistas onto the religious landscape of the Mongol empire and post-Chingizid
Inner Asia. Charting territory almost entirely unknown to most students
of Islamic history, and particularly those unfamiliar with Russian
scholarship in this area, DeWeese pulls together material from a
wide range of sources and disciplines, and in the process conjures
up tempting paths to explore and many riches still to be unearthed."—Royal
Asiatic Society
"This is an original and distinctive contribution to the fields
of history of religions, Central Asian studies, and Islamic studies.
There are no comparable studies. It comes at a time when Central
Asian studies after years of relative obscurity is now very much
in the limelight. The issue of Islam and its relationship to ethnicity
and nationalism is of central significance. DeWeese demonstrates
a command of the body of relevant sources and in fact adds to it
significantly. There is a mine of new information accompanied by
a fine summary of the state of the art. The combination of the author's
methodology, materials, and quality of analysis has produced a study
that is distinctive in extending the frontiers of scholarship."—John
L. Esposito, Georgetown University
This book is the first substantial study of Islamization in any
part of Inner Asia from any perspective and the first to emphasize
conversion narratives as important sources for understanding the
dynamics of Islamization. Challenging the prevailing notions of
the nature of Islam in Inner Asia, it explores how conversion to
Islam was woven together with indigenous Inner Asian religious values
and thereby incorporated as a central and defining element in popular
discourse about communal origins and identity.
The book traces the many echoes of a single conversion narrative
through six centuries, the previously unknown recounting of the
dramatic "contest" in which the khan Ązbek adopted Islam at the
behest of a Sufi saint named Baba Tükles. DeWeese provides the English-language
translation of this and another text as well as translations and
analyses of a wide range of passages from historical sources and
epic and folkloric materials. Not only does this study deepen our
understanding of the peoples of Central Asia, involved in so much
turmoil today, but it also provides a model for other scholars to
emulate in looking at the process of Islamization and communal religious
conversion in general as it occurred elsewhere in the world. |
