BOOK REVIEWS Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in The
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BOOK REVIEWS Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an. Montreal, McGill University Press, 1966, pp. 284, $ 9.00. Professor Izutsu is a Professor at the Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, Keio University and at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill Uni- versity. As a scholar he has achieved a rare combination of erudition in Islamic studies as well as in the philosophy and religion of his own native Japan. The work under review deals, however, purely with Islamic scriptural scholarship. Unlike his predecessors, the great scholars of the Koran like Noldeke, Bell, Blachere and Rudi Paret, Professor Izutsu's approach to the Muslim scripture is basically semantic. His purpose is to show that with the advent of the Koran the traditionally fixed system of values of pre-Islamic Arabia came to be disintegrated, and that the lexique technique of the period was transformed in its connotative structure. As the values of pre-Islamic Arabia were taken over in Islam they achieved a different set of meanings. Thus, generosity, courage, loyalty, veracity and patience have one meaning in pre-Islamic Arabia and quite other meanings in Islam. Professor Izutsu examines in depth the new concept of kufr (unbelief), its opposition to iman (faith), and its relation to association with God (shirk). He explores the semantic field of the concept kufr, examining its various nuances. Finally he examines the concepts of "good" and "bad" in Islam in a series of opposite and anti thetical technical terms. The work is a major contribution to the study of the theology of Islam, done not from a religious but from a scientific point of view. University of Toronto AZIZ AHMAD Toronto, Canada John C. Griffiths, Afghanistan. New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1967, pp. 179, $ 5.00. Very few studies of Afghanistan have been attempted, and the work under review is as welcome as the previous books by Ademec and Fraser. Compared to these two Griffiths tends to be more journalistic; nonetheless quite informative. Mr. Griffiths examines the growing influence of the USSR in Afghanistan with some discussion of its relevance to Sino-Soviet rivalry. His account of the political and social situation of the country is based to some extent on his personal observations and his interviews with leading Afghans. Two points discussed in the book are especially interesting. The first of these is the 1966 Afghan Constitution, the text of which has also been reproduced in one of the appendices. The second point of interest is the author's discussion of the Pash- tunistan movement. On this point his conclusions, reached over a decade ago, have still some relevance. Analysing the detente between Afghanistan and Pakis- tan he concludes: "The chief hope that this delicate balance can be preserved lies in the fact that the Pathan tribes themselves seem, by and large, content their respective national allegiances, and this the governments in Rawalpindi and Kabul know - even if they won't admit it." 289 The book has several useful appendices and a handy index. University of Toronto AZIZ AHMAD Toronto, Canada Marcus F. Franda, West Bengal and the Federalizing Process in India. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 257, $ 7.50. The thesis of this carefully researched book is that the surprising ability of the West Bengal government to get its own way in a federal system constitu- tionally and financially biased in favour of the central government is due to two factors, one, the strength and independence of the state Congress Party, and two, the willingness of the West Bengal populace to mobilize for political action. The author shows convincingly that the state party at least until 1965 was a closeknit organization based on influential local, chiefly rural, individuals of varying social and economic backgrounds. Because of this diverse but firm support the state Congress Party avoided strong ideological commitments and commitments to the ruling Congress Party at the centre and stood ready to respond to local pressures. The state party was not only organized separately but was able to repel attempts by national leaders to interfere in state party matters. The national leaders, however, were dependent on state leaders for votes, for party finances and for an electoral organization. Consequently, on a number of occasions when local groups voiced opposition to central govern- ment policies affecting West Bengal, the state government took the side of local groups and succeeded in winning important concessions from the centre. For the same reasons, in the case of disputes between West Bengal and other states the centre preferred to act as arbiter to achieve consensus, or if this was not possible, to postpone the decision, but not to force a solution favourable to itself. These arguments were derived as conclusions from three case studies of sequences of decisions involving confrontation between West Bengal and the central government. In the first, involving West Bengal demands that its state boundaries be moved to include portions of other states, the centre refused on at least three occasions to impose a solution even though it held sole constitutional authority to redraw boundaries. Eventually, after several brilliant maneuvres by state leaders, a compromise solution was reached that was satisfactory to the governments concerned and dissipated what had been considerable popular agitation. The discussion of the Damodar Valley Corporation shows that West Bengal and Bihar were able to frustrate the centre's intention of giving a great deal of autonomy to the Corporation, that as a result of popular pressure West Bengal was able to win concessions from the centre on the issue of a betterment levy for irrigated lands, and finally, was able to prevent the Corporation from going ahead with the second stage of its projects. The last case study, involving land reform, reveals that in spite of coercion from the centre to enact vigorous land reforms, the West Bengal government spent a leisurely five years ascer- taining the politically most suitable set of reforms, and only then did it enact a programme, and this was much milder than the one favoured by New Delhi. On reading the early chapters I gained the impression of a workable federal process responsive to a politically sensitive populace. West Bengal's political independence, however, may have been exceptional among Indian states, and it has had undesirable features. First, in some instances in which the state get .