BOOK REVIEWS 449

the Church and to continue to minister, something she has struggled with herself.
Chapter 11 by Elaine Wainwright tells of the author’s reading and re[-]membering of
Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her, a work that would become her ‘map for the
journey [she] was embarking on as a feminist biblical scholar’ (p. 161); while Lisa
Isherwood also recounts a journey, her journey with John’s Gospel that provided her
with a starting point for her study of mysticism. And lastly, Yvonne Sherwood and
Lesley Orr re-read the Book of Hosea. Sherwood writes from the stance of a biblical
scholar who asserts that she ‘became a feminist not by reading feminist criticism and
theology’ but rather by reading the Bible, specifically Hosea. Lesley Orr, on the other
hand, comes to Hosea from the perspective of one who works with abused women
and asks provocatively whether it is counter-intuitive for women to continue to

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wrestle ‘to find constructive readings of texts like Hosea’. She suggests that perhaps
in this case it may be ‘necessary to betray the Bible’ (p. 203).
Scholars of theological and biblical studies will enjoy gaining insight into the per-
sonal, theological and political motivations of their colleagues. But the volume’s
readership need not be limited to the few: students, lay people—lovers of books
generally—will find something of interest here. And no doubt many will be inspired
to read, or perhaps re-read, one of the texts that changed the life of another.

doi:10.1093/litthe/frq053 DARLENE L. BIRD

Advance Access publication 10 November 2010 University of Glasgow

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. By Tamin

Ansary. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010. xxii + 390 pp. $26.95.
The past decade has seen a marked rise in interest in Islam both within and outside of
the academy. Tamim Ansary has noted this niche market and accommodated accord-
ingly. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes is prefaced with an
important condition. Ansary, an Afghan-American, openly admits that he is neither a
scholar nor is the work to be considered a thesis, rather his aim is to tell a ‘story’ and
‘convey what Muslims think happened, because that’s what has motivated Muslims
over the ages and what makes their role in world history intelligible’ (p. xxi). That
said, however, he is an author and public speaker and such qualities are reflected in his
engagingly accessible writing style. The chapters are mostly short in length although
with a period of some 1400 years to cover, they would need to be.
Chapters One to Six chart the coming and spread of Islam up to the Abbasid Period
and, as such, are primarily political and social in nature. Chapter Seven charts the
development of Muslim doctrine with a noticeable emphasis on the social classes it
created and the hermeneutical and political tensions that arose between them. It
includes the rise and significance of the law schools, the Mu’tazilite-Asharite debates
and Al-Ghazali. Chapter eight explores the gradual fracturing of the Islamic Empire in
the period 737–1095 CE and posits that, on the eve of the First Crusade, the Levant
was politically atomised with ‘practically every city end[ing] up in the hands of a
different prince’ (p. 132). Chapter nine describes two ‘havocs’ (p. 133) that troubled
Islam in the period 1081–1381 CE; specifically, the Crusader and Mongol invasions.
Chapter Ten posits the uncertainty felt within Islamic mindsets following the Mongol
450 BOOK REVIEWS
invasions and presents various divergent Muslim responses such as Ibn Taymiyah’s
‘literalist and restrictive’ ideology and the ‘efflorescence’ of a ‘broad-minded and
undogmatic’ Sufism (p. 165). Ansary then gives a brief presentation of the formation
and nature of the Ottoman, Safavid and Moghul Empires until around 1600 CE
Chapters Eleven to Seventeen explore the effect on, and response from, the Islamic
world in relation to European economic and colonial expansion. Of particular interest
is Chapter Thirteen which explores intellectual reform movements within Islam.
Interestingly, Ansary is of the opinion that these reform movements would have
occurred regardless of European involvement because Islam had become bureaucra-
tised (p. 248). However, that said, ‘without [the Europeans] in the picture, the Muslim
reform movements might well have taken a different course’ (p. 248). Ansary iden-

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tifies three dominant reform movement positions: Muslims needed to return to ‘true’
Islam and shun innovations that had crept in; Muslims need to ‘modernise their faith
along Western lines’ (p. 251) and rethink ‘Islam as an ethical system’ (p. 251); Muslims
need to modernise and learn from the West but can do so in a ‘distinctively Muslim
way’ (p. 251). Ansary typifies each response by describing the positions of Adul
Wahhab, Sayyid Ahmad and Sayyid Jamaluddin-i-Afghan. The positions represented
by these thinkers surface again in Chapter Seventeen in response to secular modernist
projects. Finally, the book contains an ‘Afterword’ that speculates on ideological
differences that have persisted, come to light or been exploited since 9/11. For
Ansary, this period of history ‘has not mulched down enough to enter history yet:
it still belongs to journalists’ (p. 349).
The book is a remarkably diverse historical and geographical overview of Ansary’s
understanding of Islamic history. However, as with all such ambitious endeavours,
time and space restrictions (and common sense) limit subject inclusion and depth of
comment. Ansary’s interest and passion for the subject are clearly detectable through-
out and his, at times, imaginative retelling of some historical instances show a hint of
historical nostalgia. His style is accessible and he is not afraid to lean towards the
colloquial. For example, his retelling of an Arab-Sassanid battle reads like a piece of
fiction (pp. 44–46). However, while such episodes are not the dominant manner of
discourse, they do serve to illustrate his points in a lively and memorable manner.
Nonetheless, there are areas of potential frustration beyond style. For example, given
the significance of the Qur’an in Islam, I was surprised that Othman’s authorising of a
definitive version of the Qur’an (and therefore destruction of competing versions)
received only a fleetingly brief paragraph (pp. 55 and 56; brief mention also on p. 93).
One would suspect this might be one example of something which a non-Muslim
audience unfamiliar with Islamic historical perspectives might be interested to hear
more about. Additionally, Ansary has a tendency at times to ‘fudge’ dates and ana-
chronistically apply contemporary or subsequent understandings prior to them being
historically applicable. For example, in exploring the Crusades, Ansary states, Muslims
did not ‘cast the wars as an epic struggle between Islam and Christendom —that was
the story line the Crusaders saw’ (p. 148). Ansary here generalises a roughly 200 year
period of history—which struggles, which crusades? Certainly Christendom did not
cast the initial crusades in the story line that Ansary advocates. His own presentation of
Crusader-Muslim alliances against other Muslims (which he says ‘was typical’ (p. 142))
suggests that political aspirations were primary. Indeed, authors such R.W. Southern
have illustrated that Christendom was largely ignorant of Islam prior to the First
 BOOK REVIEWS 451
Crusade. Therefore, the likelihood of Christendom framing, at least the First Crusade,
in terms of an epic battle with Islam is close to nil. Similarly, Ansary’s statement that
Pope Urban II ‘decreed that anyone who went to Jerusalem to kill Muslims would
receive partial remissions of his sins’ (p. 137, emphasis added) reflects an anachronistic
and simplistic reading of the various existing accounts of the speech. Equally, Ansary
comments in a later historical period that:

on June 5 [1967], without warning, Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria
simultaneously. ‘Without Warning’ should be uttered with an asterisk here:
Arab-Israeli tension had been ratcheting up for months (p. 329).

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Such a statement seems to absolve the military posturing of Arab nations in the run
up to the 1967 Arab–Israeli War under the rather opaque term ‘tension’. Having
picked out these illustrative points of frustration, Ansary can equally counter (as he
openly states in his introduction) that he is presenting a historical story of ‘what
Muslims think happened, because that’s what has motivated Muslims over the ages
and what makes their role in world history intelligible’ (p. xxi). For this very reason,
the book is a useful non-academic guide into Ansary’s understanding of a historical
narrative that many non-Muslims, both within and out-with the academy, may be
unfamiliar with. However, for more serious critical studies that go beyond popular
introductory overviews, this book will be found lacking.

doi:10.1093/litthe/frq054 ANTHONY ALLISON

Advance Access publication 9 November 2010 University of Glasgow

Joseph’s Dilemma: ‘Honour Killing’ in the Birth Narrative of Matthew. By Matthew

J. Marohl. Cambridge: James Clark & Co., 2008. 85 pp., ƒ12.99.
What to say about Joseph, the husband of Mary, is a perennial dilemma for preachers,
theologians and ordinary Christians. His character is sketched in minimal terms by the
authors of Matthew, Luke and John, and he features nowhere else in the New
Testament. Yet the identity of Jesus as the ‘son of Joseph’ was at least significant
for some of his audience (Mt. 13:55; Lk. 4:22; Jn. 1:45; 6:42), and the importance
of Joseph in the early life of Jesus is clear from the early sections of Matthew and Luke
(Mt. 1:16, 18–25; 2:13–15, 19–23; Lk. 2:4–5, 27, 33, 41–51).
New Testament scholar Matthew J. Marohl centres his reading of Joseph on
Matthew 1:19, which depicts Joseph’s reaction to the news of Mary’s unexpected
pregnancy: ‘Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her
to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly’ (NRSV). Joseph of course does not
dismiss Mary quietly, because an angel informs him in a dream that the child has been
divinely conceived (1:20–21).
Marohl’s primary concern is to identify the cultural context of what he calls
‘Joseph’s dilemma’, in particular what ‘public disgrace’ was risked by divorce. In a
sharp departure from other modern interpreters, Marohl argues that Mary may have
suffered an adulterer’s death at the hands of her family if Joseph had not married her.