NILOOFAR HAERI Sacred Language. Ordinary People

Reviews 125

Fazeli argues that, because the state attempted to instrumentalize anthropology both under the modernization and the Islamization regimes, anthropological work has been superficial, and has not contributed to wider methodological or theoretical debates. Still, as he describes, there is a rich history of work to build on, and much that lies under the surface could, with interpretive work, be made to flower. Above all, Fazeli’s book is a starting point for recognizing the play of difference, and need for dialogue, in work done by those constrained by local institutional demands and those operating from the diaspora or abroad.

DOI: 10.1017.S0020743806391088 NILOOFAR HAERI, Sacred Language. Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Pp. 200. $69.95 cloth. $21.95 paper.

REVIEWED BY MONIQUE BERNARDS, Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle East, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected]

Between November 1987 and August 1988, Niloofar Haeri conducted fieldwork in Cairo that provided empirical data for an investigation of sociolinguistic variation in Egyptian Arabic. The results of this study are found in her earlier book, The Sociolinguistic Market of Cairo, which includes a separate chapter on language attitudes and ideologies. Sacred Lan- guage elaborates on this latter topic in light of the diglossic language situation in Cairo and attempts to explore the cultural and political implications of the divide between Classical and Egyptian Arabic, that is to say between sacred language and mother tongue. More specifically, the author tries to find an answer to the question of whether modernizing a sacred language is possible, “what kinds of limits it has and how it affects personal self-expression, cultural production and social and political relations in Egypt today” (pp. x–xi). To pursue this central question, the author conducted additional fieldwork in Cairo in 1995–96. During her stay, she not only enlarged her data set on the basis of interviews but also spent time investigat- ing written texts of various kinds to explore production and regulation of written Arabic as well. Throughout the book, the author refers to the two main variants of Arabic used in Egypt as “Classical Arabic” and “Egyptian Arabic.” She prefers Classical Arabic over Modern Standard Arabic because she sees the designation of Modern Standard Arabic as a Western invention— there is no such term in Arabic—that “has allowed us to take the entire question of modernization for granted” (p. xi). Egyptian Arabic, in contrast, is seen as “an entire language in which there are many styles of self-expression,” hence the author’s preference for using the term Egyptian Arabic over colloquial Arabic (p. xi). In the course of her investigation, however, she observes a distinction between “the Classical Arabic of religion on the one hand, and the Classical Arabic of everything else on the other” (p. 43), or traditional fus. h. a¯ versus contemporary fus. h. a¯ (p. 45, with reference to the introduction by Badawi and Hinds in their Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic). Departing from the assumption that native speakers “own” their language, that they grow up with their mother tongue, which develops and changes with them, Haeri asserts that native languages are contemporary with their speakers (p. 13). In Egypt, this contemporaneity is specific to Egyptian Arabic; Egyptians have full authority over their own mother tongue, the spoken language. With respect to Classical Arabic, however, neither Egyptians nor other Arabs are the rightful owners, Classical Arabic being the sacred language of religion. Historically, changes in Classical Arabic have therefore been resisted and, although the author observes that Classical Arabic of the present is different from that of a century ago and that there is a

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process of modernization going on, it nonetheless is a language with an uneasy relationship to the contemporary world (p. 110). Although Classical Arabic is “natural” to some writers—Haeri mentions Taha Hussein as a prime example (p. 110)—for most people, writing is translating the “self” into a written language that is far less contemporary than their natural mother tongue. Preventing Egyptian Arabic from becoming a language of writing and self-expression creates an uncertain relationship with its own contemporaneity (pp. 149–50). And, the author concludes, because “the language that is used by speakers to produce and construct a large part of Egypt’s contemporaneity is not allowed to develop while the other language over whose contemporaneity there continue to be unending struggles remains the official language . . . , there is an abiding and deeply conflicted sensibility toward just what Egypt’s contemporaneity is and should be” (p. 157). The core of the book investigates the division between Classical and Egyptian Arabic from different angles; the monograph comprises six chapters, including a general introduction (chapter 1) and a conclusion (chapter 6). Chapter 2 deals with the attitude toward the use of Classical Arabic in daily life, mainly based on interviews with Egyptians from different social layers. In chapter 3, the production of printed texts is focal—especially the role of editors and correctors in the process; chapter 4 deals with the written language of Egypt’s most important newspaper, al-Ahram, as well as with articles about Arabic published by that same newspaper. Very revealing in this respect is the author’s study of the various ways that spoken words are converted into written language. For this, she explores the representation of interviews with the Egyptian president Mubarak, novelist Naguib Mahfouz, actor Omar Sharif, and comedian Adel Imam. The penultimate chapter, chapter 5, returns to the subject of language attitude and examines the views of authors, poets, journalists, and publishers who were interviewed (among whom is the most famous Egyptian publisher and bookseller, Madbouli). The language of school textbooks, the short life of a journal in Egyptian Arabic, censorship, and the role of politics are dealt with as well in this chapter under the general heading of “Persistent Dilemmas.” The conclusion in chapter 6 is followed by notes, a bibliography, and a general index. In all, the book is a welcome contribution to the field of Arabic linguistics.

DOI: 10.1017.S002074380639109X FARZIN VAHDAT, God and Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002). Pp. 283. $35.95 cloth. $19.95 paper.

REVIEWED BY ROBERT D. LEE, Political Science Department, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colo.; e-mail: [email protected]

The Pahlavis pursued a distorted vision of modernity, neglecting the development of the autonomous, self-determining individual in favor of the construction of a rationalist, self- determining, authoritarian state. The clerics who have replaced the Pahlavis have rejected positivistic conceptions of modernity but have adopted another form of certainty that is no less, or only slightly less, demeaning to individual autonomy. Farzin Vahdat blames Iranian in- tellectuals, who have, in his view, undervalued the place of individual freedom and overvalued positivistic understandings of modernity. The argument depends upon conceptions of modernity that Vahdat attributes to Kant and Hegel. For him, the idea of modernity originates in Kant’s assertion that truth emerges not from God or nature but from the human will. The idea gives rise to a profound ambiguity that plagues Europe and the rest of the world including Iran. On the one hand, Kant asserts the