2 comments about Without Forgetting the Imam: Lebanese Shi'Ism in an American Community.

1. One of the best books I have read on Arab-Americans, it has been singularly helpful for myself personally. Walbridge writes from her extensive experience and study in the Lebanese population in Dearborn, MI, home of the largest concentration of Arabs in the world, outside the Middle East. I read this book shortly before moving to Dearborn, and it helped me understand the community I was moving into and adapt to it much quicker. She was able to make many inroads into the neighborhoods, as a woman in a semi-closed society, and as a Western woman interacting with Imams and men. She goes into detail on the history and development of the various Muslim denominations, and shares details on the minutiae of the culture that those in other places in Michigan, including West Dearborn, would be otherwise completely unaware of. Examples of excellent research- scholarly and ethnographic- include stories on the wedding/engagement traditions and the Shi'i tradition of muta'a. Her use of Arabic words throughout (defined initially) is particularly helpful.
   
   For those who do not live in Dearborn, this is still an excellent study/ethnography on the situation of Arabs in America in general. It will give great insights for those studying the situation of Muslims and Arabs. It is also a helpful book for the layman interested who wants to get a grasp on the people of the now second-largest religion in America. Read this book to get past the media stereotypes of a violent people, and the stereotypes of Arab-Americans in particular. Walbridge brings them alive as humans and Americans, with different traditions and beliefs.



2. Aside from two pioneering anthropological works done in the 1960s, a completely different era from the present one, Walbridge has written the first book-length study of an immigrant American Muslim community. And she's picked perhaps the most interesting one of them, Dearborn, Michigan, a town of nearly 100,000 population that is mostly Arab and largely Muslim. It's a place where "recently arrived villagers [from Lebanon] can manage adequately . . . without ever tasting a hamburger or uttering a word of English." Walbridge is not only a keen observer of Dearborn but brings the added insight of having earlier lived in Lebanon itself, and so can compare the peoples she encounters in the suburbs of Detroit with their relatives back home.

   Her years of research in 1987-91 and "vast amounts of time" spent with the subjects of her study have permitted a subtle and convincing portrait of a people still very much outside the mainstream of American life. Take the distinctly Shi'i institution of temporary marriage (mut'a in Arabic): Walbridge tells of a young man, hoping for sex with a woman without breaking the rules of his religion or forming a permanent bond with a non-Muslim. He propositioned a number of American women with the prospect of a temporary marriage and "all of them laughed at him except one," and she ended up converting to Islam and getting permanently married to him. Among the most valuable information here is a careful review of Islamic practices; Walbridge finds the avoidance of pork to be most widespread and the full complement of prayers perhaps the least.

   Middle East Quarterly, December 1998

2 comments about Between Foreigners and Shi`is: Nineteenth-Century Iran and its Jewish Minority (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and C).

1. Daniel Tsadik is an outstanding scholar whose contribution to the history of Iran and Iranian Jewry will do much to open up a field still coming into its own.



2. This work sets forth in clear prose and brings to light a lesser known part of the history of the Jews. Doctor Tsadik should be praised for revealing this aspect of Jewish history to scholars and laymen alike.

No comments about An Anthology of Ismaili Literature: A Shi'i Vision of Islam.

No comments about Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System.

No comments about The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories (Forgotten Books).

No comments about Early Shi'i Thought: The Teachings of Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (I.B.Tauris in Association With the Institute of Ismaili Studies).

No comments about Between Revolution and State: The Path to Fatimid Statehood: Qadi al-Nu'man and the Construction of Fatimid Legitimacy (Ismaili Heritage).

2 comments about The Just Ruler in Shi'ite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence.

1. This book is a good history of development of the power of Muctehids in shi'ite Islam. Author takes from the time of fifth Imam to current day and explains the development of the concept of Vilayat. Various forms of Vilayat is discussed as they are developed in time due to socio-political and theological reasons. Author dwells consifdearly on few major Muctehids, Tusi, Hilli, Mufid and Al-Murtada, with whom all started. The current interpretation by Sabzawari, Burujurdi or Humeyni are not covered with necessary depth. At the end the book has a nice appendix regarding the Khums and whom it belongs. I wish the book was to finalaze more exposition of current conditions and rulings. the concept of Vilayat had too many dimensions and author covers all of them with patient. Time to time you think that you already read that concept in prior paragraph but they all have small nuances depending on their definition. One needs to read very slowly. The best part of the book is that, Author with full patient when he uses a phrase that has a concept associated in it and was covered before repeats same in brackets to remaind readers what it was, so you do not have to refer any dictionary in the back of the book.



2. One of the worst books on the subject. A major disappointment.

1 comments about The Fatimids and Their Traditions of Learning: Volume 2 (Ismaili Heritage).

1. This book clearly describes many of the organizational structures within the fatimid emprire. Furthermore, it gives a good account of the empire from start to finish.

No comments about Zion Burns (Hans Strauss Saga).