_full_journalsubtitle: International Journal for the Study of Modern _full_abbrevjournaltitle: WDI _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 0043-2539 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 1570-0607 (online version) _full_issue: 1 _full_issuetitle: 0 _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien J2 voor dit article en vul alleen 0 in hierna): Book Reviews _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (rechter kopregel - mag alles zijn): Book Reviews _full_is_advance_article: 0 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 Die Welt des 60 (2020) 103-105

Book Reviews Die Welt des Islams 60 (2020) 103-135 103

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Book Reviews ∵

Geneive Abdo, The New Sectarianism. The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shiʿa-Sunni Divide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 264 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-0233143.

The New Sectarianism makes for highly depressing reading on the current state of the and the years to come. Geneive Abdo predicts that “it is hard to imagine anything in the foreseeable future but continued sectarian strife dominating the region, whether fueled by rival nations such as Sunni-led Saudi Arabia or Shi’a-ruled , or by grassroots preachers and sheikhs” (p. 150). The aim of her book is to detail how the Middle East has (been) plunged into this deep-seated malaise in the first place. Primarily addressing both a popular audience and policymakers, Abdo’s monograph brings home the message that religion and religious identity have been overlooked in most analyses of the Arab Spring and its aftermath. In the author’s view, Western observers have been quick in blaming the geopolitical rivalry of Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as “familiar and more comfortable factors” such as the failing of state institutions, underdevelopment, ethnic difference, or “entrenched anti- modern attitudes” (p. 7). Abdo concedes that sectarian conflict often seems to be a pretext for rivalries over water, power, or economic disparities: “However, its very persistence and seeming intractability must be understood as flowing directly from religious differences and their associated religious identities that this difference has conferred on both Shi’a and Sunni” (pp. 11-12). Having thus clearly laid out her argument about the continuing importance of religion, Abdo provides her readers in the first chapter with a very helpful and concise introduction to contemporary Shiʿi Islam and its historical development. Chapter 2 sheds light on the emergence of Salafism in the 20th century, paying special attention to a remarkable shift from political quietism to contemporary activism among many of its proponents, the so-called “politicos”. In Abdo’s judgement, Salafi actors were “supremely adroit at exploiting opportunities to advance their rhetorical and theological positions” in the midst of the ­post-2011 chaos in the region (p. 46). The third chapter probes some of the

© KoninklijkeDie Welt des Islams Brill NV, 60 Leiden, (2020) 2020 | doi:10.1163/15700607-00601P06103-105 104 Book Reviews implications of this newly-won prominence by mapping the sectarian Salafi Twitter sphere up until 2016. The author focuses on several prominent voices based in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. She argues that these tweeting Salafi scholars share several consistent messages. Beyond the rehashing of well-worn anti Shiʿi tropes, they also conflate Iran with Shiʿism more broadly and express the feeling that Sunni Islam as a whole is facing a grave risk (p. 69). After thus highlighting the “transnational nature of sectarian attitudes, which have no borders or boundaries” (p. 68), Abdo discusses the case studies of Leb- anon (chapter 4) and Bahrain (chapter 5). In the context of Lebanon, Abdo foregrounds the extent to which has lost clout among the country’s Sunni population. Once nearly universally admired for its fearless “resistance” to Israel, the perception has shifted significantly, largely due to the Shiʿi party’s fervent military support for the Syrian government (p. 105). According to Abdo, Salafis have played a crucial role in this regard by introducing “sectarian dis- course into the national debate on television and in other forms of the media that is far more confrontational than in the past” (p. 107). Likewise, in Bahrain the perspective of a joint Sunni-Shiʿi struggle for democratic freedoms, still alive in the 1990s and the early days of the 2011 protests, has receded into the background, becoming a virtual impossibility since 2012. This hardening of boundaries is due to a combination of government attempts at nurturing ­anti-Shiʿi rhetoric advanced by certain Sunni groups (p. 130), and of Iranian propaganda and (covert) support for more radical elements in the Bahraini opposition (p. 143). As a consequence, even those Sunnis “who criticize the government and might be expected to share common ground with some pro- reform Shi’a are still anti-Shi’a in principle” (p. 136). The New Sectarianism succeeds in deftly navigating the sectarian landscape of the Middle East in the post-Arab Spring era while introducing several lesser known actors. Abdo utilizes Twitter snippets to great effect and also provides a complete English translation of these 140-character Salafi statements in an ap- pendix of 55 pages, which should come in very handy for teaching purposes. One drawback of her lucid and accessible style is a somewhat – and perhaps unavoidable – schematic approach. The book operates on a rather clear-cut and simplifying dichotomy of “Iranian-Persian” and “Arab identity” that sup- posedly distinguishes Shiʿis in Iraq and Iran (see, e.g., p. 19 and p. 44). But the contemporary focus on tweets and interviews also means that historical devel- opments, such as state-building processes in Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon, are often painted with very broad strokes. While Abdo spends three pages on the historical genesis of Salafism in Lebanon (pp. 56-58), the reader is slightly lost as to what caused the sudden increase of Lebanese Salafis “in response to the US invasion of Iraq” in 2003 (p. 108). As far as Islamic thought is concerned, the

Die Welt des Islams 60 (2020) 103-105