The Modern Economic and Social History of the Middle East in Its World Context. Edited by Georges Sabagh. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. 161. $39.50.
Sami Zubaida's Law and Power in the Islamic World is a fascinating politico-social history of the relations between Islamic law and the procession of political masters who have ruled the Middle East since the Prophet's death. One message is clear: the notion of an omnipotent shariءa, passed from caliph to caliph for fourteen centuries, is a myth held by both Islamist radicals and their Western critics.
