Islamic Theology and Philosophy Studies in Honor of George F. Hourani By Michael E. Marmura (ed.). Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.

Abstract

Michael Marmura, the editor of this volume, has brought to his readers
a valuable collection of highly respected authors, from van Ess and Frank to
Anawati in part one, and from Makarem, Nasr, and Mahdi to Shehadi in part
two. Each contributor to this seventeen-essay volume is an authority on his/her
topic. Indeed, what we have here is a collection of essays in which by some
of today 's most competent and respected lslamicists inform the readers of the
results of their scholarly research into various aspects of their discipline and
thereby producing a resounding tribute worthy of a scholar of the stature of
George Hourani, to whom the volume is dedicated.
To be sure, not only is this work written by experts, but it is also meant
for the experts. The essays are thus quite naturally extremely narrow in scope
and perspective and are also self-contained and therefore independent of each
other. As a result, each essay is tightly packed, and reviewing this book would
mean reviewing each essay separately. Alternatively, and this would be much
more desirable, the reviewer can present a general account of the problematics
of Islamic theology and philosophy in which each contribution coheres to form
some kind of an overall picture. But, in fairness, this is the task of the editor,
not of the reviewer. Thus one wonders why Marmura, given his standing in
and familiarity with the field, did not write general introductory articles for
each of the volume's two sections: "Islamic Theology" and "Islamic Philosophy."
For example, it is not clear to the reader as to how and in what way van Ess's
powerful analysis of a kalam anecdote is related to Frank's penetrating study
of the kalam doctrine of bodies and atoms. For the reader, unless he/she
possesses the same degree of expertise as the two authors, the only thing in
common between them is that they both talk about the mutakallimun. Similarly,
in more general terms, the reader legitimately wonders if there are any broad
concerns, or if there are any shared methodological approaches, which bind
all of those different Islamic philosophers whose thought forms the subject
matter of the book's second part. These questions could have been dealt with
in an editorial panorama. Indeed, one may argue that a general account is
possible only after the basic data have been collected, and since much of the
classical literature of Islam still lies unstudied, a survey article would be
premature. But a survey need not be definitive - it can always be tentative ...