Machine summary:
Changing global conditions in the economic sphere have further propelled new forces and sociopolitical-actors onto the-public-scene:1bus-women may be-expected to play a different and more important role in Muslim civic space in the near future.
Through a deconstructive process of reversal and re-inscription, Lawrence attempts to expose the privileged violent/peaceful male/female violence hierarchy that supports and justifies such perceptions of Islam.
In this sense and throughout his work, Lawrence subordinates and marginalizes Islam in favor of three determining, competing, and challenging Book Reviews 'metaphysical' forces-s-history, nationalism.
This is particularly the case when Lawrence asserts that no real revolution has succeeded in the Muslim world, including Iran; the measure of success is the global socioeconomic order, and economic privilege as the criteria that limits and constrains options of selfexpression (p.
Ignoring principles of self-referentiality, even when there are seemingly conflicting juristic rulings, he identifies the starting point of comprehension of the several manifestations of Islam to be region specific, with ideologues traced to specific countries and then sorted out into specific classes, and specific groups of men and women (p.
The outcome, as far as Muslims are concerned, can only be increased fragmentation, manifested earlier in terms of competing nation-states, now to be extended to family ties breaking them down into mere independent gender relations rather than col- Book Reviews lective family identities.
In many respects Lawrence's work reiterates and reflects the confused state of Western scholarship as it wheels and deals with Islam in the free-market of ideas and opinions, unconstrained by the self-referential logic and structure of the faith itself.