REVIEWS

Brendan O'LEARY, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian History. Explorations in Social Structures (Basil Blackwell, Oxford/Cambridge 1989) XIV + 394 p. (ISBN 0-631-16766-8).

Scholasticism and scholarship nowadays rarely meet. The former pretends to be absolutely right, the latter leaves room for the wisdom of Cartesian doubt. But Mr. O'Leary quite happily notes that the Marxist concept of the Asiatic mode of production-a much discussed topic indeed!-is a very scholastic subject. Wanting to put a definite and final end to everything one could dream of saying in the mat- ter, Mr. O'Leary himself displays a good deal of solid scholasticism. He conse- quently likes to tell us all and everything: we learn that he word-processed his study with Write Now but switched later to Microsoft Word (3. 01) on a Macintosh Plus. It's good to know, I'm sure. At a rough counting his bibliography amounts to more than threehundred titles, although he has confined himself to the literature available in English and French. One shudders at the thought of Mr. O'Leary being able to read German (and Russian!) as well. There are of course an impressive number of footnotes, more than a few asides, a summary here, a conclu- sion there and five separate appendices attached to the two chapters dealing with Indian history. What is there to be learnt from all this? Quite a lot as a matter of fact. What struck me as particularly funny is that, according to O'Leary, Marx himself men- tioned the concept of the Asiatic mode of production only once explicitly. It is just another reason for maintaining that Marx only turned true Marxist after he had been well dead and buried-in this way giving proof that history is a dialectic pro- cess really. But Mr. O'Leary is not to be put off so lightly. A penetrating analysis of some seventy pages reveals that the writings on the subject by Marx and Engels lack clarity and logical rigour. Who would have ever guessed? But having said all this I hasten to add that I would do grave injustice to Mr. O'Leary's true scholarship if I would leave it at that. As a matter of fact one cannot help being impressed by the sharp analytical wit he employed in his unrelenting and cool endeavours to get at the crux of the matters at issue. Not the least of his merits is showing that the much inflated topic of the Asiatic mode of production is really very far from being funny or harmless. It is instead a horrid example of political scholasticism of a particularly nasty, cruel and even bloody kind. Mr. O'Leary's argumentations certainly prove that the concept should not belong in the box of tools of intellectually honest scholars, were it only for its onesided, mistaken Eurocentricity and discriminating Orientalism. The stereotype of the 19th century conceiving of Asia as an homogenous and inferior world kept its hold on what one author quipped to be 'the Prolet-Aryan outlook of Marxism' in particular. As a historical phenomenon the mode is in fact, in O'Leary's words, 'the Loch Ness Monster'-much discussed, never sighted and both believed and disbelieved. The Monster raises its ugly head, however, as soon as the concept is ideologically used-be it by Marxists or their enemies like Karl Wittfogel. Sometimes the followers of Marx themselves-Stalin first of all-, realised that the model of orien- tal despotism contained a most dangerous and controversial parable of socialism turning into despotic and terrorist state rule. Stalin consequently banned it from 366 the Marxist doctrines, repressing and persecuting anyone who wished to adhere to the concept. Mr. O'Leary maintains that the model of the Asiatic mode of production is the bastard child of historical materialism. It arose from the outdated occidental visions of the East that freely mixed all sorts of fantasies with all too few facts. It is his con- tention that the theoretical implications of the concept pose insoluble dilemma's for historical materialism: Marx's theory of history is damned with the concept, and damned without it. The year 1989 may have proved it.

P. W. KLEIN

Michael LECKER, The Ban� Sulaym: A Contribution to the Study of Early Islam. Monograph IV in the Max Schloessinger Memorial Series of the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989, 269 pp. M. Lecker's monograph on the Banu Sulaym is a well-documented in-depth study of a single western Arabian tribe in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times. As such, it will be received with enthusiasm and read with interest by all those who are engaged in the study of early Islamic history in general and the history of the Arabian Peninsula in particular. Throughout, Lecker gives evidence of his familiarity with a broad spectrum of primary Arabic source materials, including the works of the ancient Arabian historians, biographers, genealogists, poets, and Qur'dnic commentators, as well as a large number of modern secondary sources, including many published in Saudi Arabia by native scholars. Early on, Lecker states his aim as being the elucidation of "the potential hidden in the study of tribal Arabia for future research of pre-Islamic and early Islamic history." The focus is on the all-important transition period from Jahiliyya to Islam. By focusing his attention on one tribe, the author proposes, a large amount of date can be collected and a sense of continuity emerges, as the history of individuals is traced from the pre-Islamic period into the Umayyad period. The difficulties faced by Lecker in his treatise can be readily appreciated by anyone who has done work with ancient Arabic genealogical materials. Besides being vague and at times obscure, the information provided by different sources on a single issue is at times contradictory. Nevertheless, the analysis of genealogy, geography, place-names and tribal divisions represents the most promising approach to the study of ancient Arabic tribal history in particular and much of early Islamic history in general. The work is divided into ten chapters, which deal successively with the land of the Banu Sulaym and their links with other tribes, the three main branches of the Banu Sulaym, the tribe's relations with Medina and Mecca, Sulaym's military activity, the letters of the Prophet Muhammad to Sulaym, and Sulaym and The last chapter contains a useful summary of the main conclusions reached by the author, and it is followed by six appendices providing more detailed information on selected aspects of Sulaym and its milieu. Sulaym's importance in the history of early Islam is clear to all; what Lecker has achieved, by a judicious sifting of the available source material, is to enable the