EVOLUTION OF HO CHI MINH’S POLITICAL THOUGHT

In order to understand the political evolution of Ho Chi Minh it is important to understand the ideological environment in which he was born and raised. It was his young life, and his teachers that shaped him into a driven patriot so committed to a nationalist dream that he would never marry. It was this dream, empowered by a sharp intellect and wisdom that Ho Chi Minh would try to clothe with several political systems, finally determining that Leninist Communism, with Vietnamese accents, fit best.

Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19, 1890, Ho was given the “milk name” Nguyen Sinh Cung and was the second son to Nguyen Sinh Sac and Hoang Thi Loan. His older brother had raised Sac until the age of fifteen when he was noticed and adopted by a visiting scholar named Hoang Xuan Duong. It was not an unusual occurrence for the poor son of a farmer to be adopted by a scholar for formal training in preparation for the civil service exam. Sac showed great promise as a Confucian scholar, and in 1883 he married his teacher’s daughter. Over the next seven years they would have three children.[1]

They lived a typical life for the family of a Vietnamese scholar. Sac continued his studies and Loan worked the small rice fields and family garden, and raised the kids. In 1891, Sac took the civil service exam for the first time and failed, but did well enough to encourage him to keep working. In 1894, he passed with the equivalent of a Masters of Arts degree. This was a great honor, which the local village wanted to celebrate. Sac insisted that the instead of the celebration, meat be distributed to poor families.[2]

Sac could have joined the bureaucracy at this point and earned a substantial living, but he chose instead to teach locally and continue his studies. In 1895, he attempted the imperial examinations which he failed but chose to remain in the city of Hue to study at the Imperial Academy. In 1898, after a second failure, Sac accepted a position as a teacher in the city. This was the first time that Sac’s two sons were formally introduced to “the Confucian classics in the Chinese language.”[3]

In late 1900, Sac was given an official position in a city over five hundred miles away from Hue. Loan stayed in Hue where she gave birth to their fourth child named Nguyen Sinh Xin. The birth weakened her body and in early 1901 Loan died. For several weeks ten year old Cung worked hard to find sustenance for his youngest brother. When he heard about the death of his wife, Sac left his official position, picked up his kids, and returned to his wife’s home village.[4]

After spending a few months in the village, Sac returned to Hue where he eventually passed the Imperial Examinations at the level of doctorate second degree. During this time Sac’s children stayed in their mother’s village being taken care of by their grandmother. When Cung turned eleven, his father gave him the name Nguyen Tat Thanh (he who will succeed). [5]

At first Thanh studied with his father, but was eventually sent to study with Vuong Thuc Qui. Both rejected the methods of route memorization which characterized the classical methods of Confucian education. Instead Qui emphasized the humanitarian nature of the Confucian writings and a deep patriotism and nationalism. Under Qui, Thanh wrote a number of patriotic essays and was allowed to serve the number of guest lecturers who would visit Qui’s school. Qui’s patriotism was such that he soon closed his school to embrace rebel activities.[6]

Thanh returned to study with his father who held similar views. Sac is known to have said, “Why should I force my students to memorize the classics just to take the exams? I won’t teach my kids that way.” This allowed Thanh to immerse himself in the popular heroic tales he preferred over the classics. Thanh would also join the other village children around the forge of the local blacksmith who would tell tales of the heroes of Vietnam’s past. Thanh also learned to forge and hunt from this man.[7]

All of this together formed the foundation of a personal calling to patriotic nationalism that would drive this boy to become Ho Chi Minh, “He Who Enlightens.” He would explore several political systems with the primary purpose of finding an adequate expression for this calling. It is probably Phan Boi Chau who was most influential to Thanh’s move away from traditional models for the realization of his nationalist dreams.

Chau was a friend of Sac and when he would visit Thanh served the men while they talked. Chau was contemptuous of the monarchy and felt strongly that Vietnam needed to abandon the traditional models and look abroad for modern systems. Chau looked to Japan and the Japanese Emperor Meiji who used foreign models to modernize Japan. Thanh however turned down an offer to join Chau’s movement because Chau wanted to invite the Japanese to drive out the French. It is said that Thanh felt such an action would be like “driving the tiger out the front door while welcoming the wolf in through the back door.” This was not the only reason for Thanh to reject Chau’s offer. When Thanh asked Chau how Japan was able to take the technological steps necessary for its modernization, Chau told him they learned from the West. In 1905 Thanh was able to begin his journey of understanding the West, he began studying the French language and culture with a group of his father friends who taught him “if you want to defeat the French, you must understand them. To understand the French, you must study the French language.”[8]

In 1906 Sac was once again summoned to court to accept an official appointment. He had been able to refuse such appointments in the past, but he felt he could no longer escape such service. It is possible that his continual refusals had brought him negative attention at court. He was granted a position that allowed him to supervise the students of the Imperial Academy. It seems he grew to question the meaning of traditional phrase “loyalty to the king, love of country” when the king was nothing more than a puppet to a foreign ruler. He talked openly about this to his friends and advised his student against pursuing an official career.[9]

When they reached Hue Thanh and his brother were enrolled in the Dong-Ba upper-level elementary school where classes were taught in Vietnamese, Chinese, and French. Thanh was an exceptionally serious and disciplined student. He finished the two-year program in one year. In 1907 both Thanh and his brother were accepted to the highest-level school in Hue that focused on both French and Vietnamese education. It was here that Thanh was introduced to such thinkers as Socrates, “Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.”[10] Thanh is known to have been well like by his teachers, but it was during this time that his anti-colonial activity really began.[11]

The anti-colonial activity of Thanh and his brother eventually cause his father to be closely watched by the authorities. Sac was transferred to a magistrate’s position in a problematic city two hundred miles away from Hue in an attempt to get rid of him. It worked, by 1910 he was officially removed from office. In 1914, Thanh’s brother was found guilty of treasonous activity and spent several years in prison.[12]

Thanh ended up blacklisted and on the run. He took a post at the Duc Thanh School that espoused reformist ideals and a nationalist agenda. The school was divided between the ideologies of Phan Chu Trinh, which taught that the French could be trusted to act in a moral way if they were approached correctly, and that of Phan Boi Chau who wanted Japan’s aid to oust the French. “According to one Vietnamese source, he (Thanh) respected both Phan Chu Trinh and Phan Boi Chau, but had resurvations about both approaches, dismissing the former’s trust in the French goodwill as Naïve and the latter’s reliance on Japan and members of the royal family as misguided.”[13]

In 1911 Thanh left the school without telling anyone he was leaving, for Saigon. It is unclear why he left, but shortly after a French official showed up at the school to ask about him. Thanh was able to contact his father who was also in Saigon, and on his advise prepared to go abroad. He spent the next two years mostly at sea where he discovered the horrors of colonialism in areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.[14]

Thanhs’ time abroad solidified his determination to do whatever he could to realize a free Vietnam. It is probable that he was first exposed to the writings of Karl Marx during this time. Evidence is sparse for his activities during this time, but he did live for a time in the United States and in London before arriving in France.

Thanh went to Paris after World War I where he organized the Association of Vietnamese Patriots and took the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot). The leaders of the AVP thought that the peace program of the victorious Allies could provide opportunities for Vietnamese freedom. Quoc presented a petition to the Allies calling for the recognition of Vietnam as an independent nation, but it was officially ignored.[15]

It is not as farfetched as it seems at first that Quoc would present such a petition. Even though there was no official response to the petition, Colonel House, President Woodrow Wilson’s senior advisor in the US delegation at the post World War I meeting, acknowledged receipt of the petition and sent a note stating that it would be brought to the attention of President Wilson. Wilson was having a very hard time, meeting resistance at almost every turn. Colonialism was a major issue at these meetings, but the compromises necessary to ensure peace changed little.[16]

Even though Quoc’s father and teachers had rejected the rigidity of the Confucian system, it can’t be ignored that the culture of Vietnam was largely shaped by Confucian ideals. From the perspective of Confucianism, Western capitalism is its ideological opposite, while socialism embraces a morality much more compatible. Like many from Asia, Quoc’s fist exposure to Western capitalism was through exploitative colonialism. The horrors of colonialism created an automatic, unconscious rejection of the potential for Western style capitalism to be effective in serving his nationalist vision. Even given this socialist tendency, it wasn’t until July 1920 that Quoc would find the spark and the inspiration to build on his nationalist foundation. [17]

There is evidence to suggest that Quoc was involved in socialist organizations even while in London. While in Paris he was not accepted as a full member of the French Socialist Party until after the impact of the petition had been felt. The petition made Quoc something of a minor celebrity among socialist circles by 1919. In 1920 Quoc was attending regular meetings and taking a more active role in the political discussions of the French Socialist Party. What was important to Quoc, what was an immediate concern to him, the exploitation of colonial peoples, was a peripheral issue to the majority of the party and European socialists who were most with the issue of world capitalism.[18]

It seems the debates were disheartening for Quoc, and his friends would often comment that he know nothing of socialist or communist theory. He asked a friend to suggest what to read to gain the education he lacked. He read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital (which he would continue to study for the rest of his life), but it was not this masterwork that provided the major shift Quoc needed.[19]

In July 1920, Quoc read Lenin’s “Theses on the Nationals and Colonial Questions,” and his life was give focus and purpose. Here was exactly what he had been searching for years. Quoc is known to have said, “This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation.” This document spoke directly to Quoc, it caused an almost religious conversion experience. This is the moment where everything changed, where evolution became refinement. The man who would come to be known as Ho Chi Minh now had the ideological tools to build on the foundations of his patriotic nationalism, and turn him into a legend during his own lifetime.[20] 

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1.       William Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life (New York, NY: Hyperion Publishers, 2000), 17.

2.       Ibid, 18

3.       Ibid, 20

4.       Ibid, 22

5.       Ibid

6.       Ibid, 23

7. Ibid, 24

                8. Ibid, 27, 32

                9. Ibid, 29

                10, Ibid, 39

                11. Ibid, 36

                12. Ibid, 38

                13. Ibid, 40

                14. Ibid, 45

                15. Gary Hess, Vietnam and the United States (New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1998), 15.

                16. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, 60

                17. Ibid, 62

                18. Ibid, 63

                19. Ibid, 64

                20. Ibid, 65

TRUMAN DOCTRIN AND VIETNAM

          World War II changed the political dynamic of the world. Nations who held enormous economic and political power were left with severely damaged infrastructures and many were nearly bankrupt. Because of the geographical location of the United States, it was largely untouched by the war. This left the US in a prime position to move into a place of leadership in the world. With a fairly stable economy and infrastructure, and a large military, the US was a true superpower. Despite the United States new status among the nations of the world, it “approached the postwar world with much uncertainty.”^[1]

By the end of the war, a new adversary was rising. The Soviet Union was the largest and most powerful nation in Europe and Asia, and the United States strategists believed that the Soviets had plans for global domination. This was reinforced by Stalin’s reluctance to fulfill his pledge to free nations liberated from Nazi Germany after the war. Dean Acheson, the Undersecretary of State, was an advocate of force rather than negotiations in relationship with the Soviet Union. The failed attempts to appease Hitler taught him that “power, rather than negotiations, checked potential aggression…”^[2] When the Soviets appeared to be taking advantage of the postwar situations in Greece and Turkey, Acheson warned that “the Communists would contaminate Western Europe and the Middle East”^[3] in the same way that rot spread from fruit to fruit.

The Truman Doctrine^[4] committed the US to aid and support both Greece and Turkey in an effort to deny them to the Soviet Union. It was a policy of containment that would build areas of strength around Soviet controlled territory seeking to stop the spread of the Soviet Union in particular and communism in general. Truman’s advisors believed this to be a struggle of life and death.

Using rhetoric of extremes, President Truman lumped all “ways of life” under two labels, “One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guaranties of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression”. He continues, “The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections and the suppression of personal freedoms”.^[5] The language of the Truman Doctrine betrayed a deeply held sense of superiority which would show up again and again in US international policy. It was also a masterful effort to manipulate the situation through fear. By drawing such stark contrasts, President Truman effectively demanded that congress and the world choose sides. The fact that the sides were ideological extremes, defined in “black and white” language, helped to place the stakes well above the individual human beings who were involved on both sides of situation. Because it was the ideal that was at stake, atrocities could be committed and tolerated as long as the goal of the “greater picture” was held firmly in sight.

Less than a year after the implementation of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshal Plan was designed as a massive financial investment in the reconstruction of Western Europe.^[6] Primarily focused on blocking Communist influence in France and Italy, the Marshal plan trapped the US into a game of blackmail with France in Indochina. Because the US believed it was fighting for global stakes, and France was simply trying to retain a colonial possession, the US had more invested in the stability of Indochina than the French did.

            In 1948, a review of US policy towards Indochina made it clear that the US long-term goals were not being met.

Our long-term objectives are: (1) to eliminate so far as possible Communist influence in Indochina and to see installed a self-governing nationalist state which will be friendly to the US and which, commensurate with the capacity of the peoples involved, will be patterned upon our conception of a democratic state as opposed to the totalitarian state which would evolve inevitably from Communist domination; (2) to foster the association of the peoples of Indochina with the western powers, the end that those peoples will prefer freely to cooperate with the western powers culturally, economically and politically; (3) to raise the standard of living so that the peoples of Indochina will be less receptive to totalitarian influences and will have an incentive to work productively and thus contribute to a better balanced world economy; and (4) to prevent undue Chinese penetration and subsequent influence in Indochina so that the peoples of Indochina will not be hampered in their natural developments by the pressure of an alien people and alien interests.^[7]

            There were several problems with these goals from the outset. These problems were compounded by the prejudices and fears inherent in the Truman Doctrine. First, Indochina was still seen as a periphery issue to the stability of Europe. This placed primary value on keeping the French happy. Because of the fear of Communism the US refused to deal with the strongest nationalist movement in Vietnam, that of Ho Chi Min. Even with the assurances that Ho Chi Min was not in Stalin’s pocket, and the fact that the majority of Vietnamese viewed him favorably, because his cause and his movement was Communist they refused to back him.

            In 1946, Ho proclaimed the independence of his nation. Influenced by Thomas Jefferson, he referred to the American and French revolutions, but not the Russian. He proclaimed self-determination and the equality of nations as a factor in his expectation of Allied support. In addition, the OSS officers who were in Vietnam at the time esteemed Ho, assuring their superiors that he had the peoples approval and that he was a capable leader and administrator.^[8]

The French used this to their advantage. They were not committed to the idea of a free Indochina, and their administration was repressive and detrimental to the freedom of the people. Because the US needed a stable France to maintain the containment of the Soviets in Europe, the US would do no more than gently reprimand the French for the atrocities committed in the name of colonialism. This compromised all four long-term objectives of US policy.

By 1950, North Korean troops “surged” into South Korea and captured Seoul, the capital. Six months prior, after taking control of China from Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong’s troops reached Vietnam. Both the Soviet Union and China recognized the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This recognition was one element that led to the extension of the policy of containment to Indochina and South East Asia. ^[9]

            Rather than simply supporting the French for the sake of Europe, the US now would attempt to contain the growth of Communism in South East Asia. Paranoia reached a new level with the Domino Theory, which was the idea that if Vietnam fell to Communism, then Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and India would soon follow.

            Early in 1950, the US considered the possibility that Ho might not be controlled by the Soviets when he requested and received recognition of his regime from Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, who was considered a renegade Communist nationalist. The CIA was never sent into Vietnam to find out for sure because “a white man would be very conspicuous… in order to have an effective intelligence officer, he would have to have a little brown blood. Then, we wouldn’t be able to trust him.” ^[10]

            A few years prior to this, in an effort to appear to embrace some of the US gentle demands, the French decided to lure Bo Dai back to the throne. In 1945, Bo Dai had abdicated the throne, passing his authority to Ho Chi Min. It took several years, but by 1948, with promises of the independence and unity of Vietnam, the French were able to seduce him back to the imperial throne. The whole thing was a farce. France maintained all authority while Bo Dai acted as the figurehead of Vietnamese nationalism. In 1949, Bo Dai and Vincent Auriol, the French president, signed the Elysee Agreement, which reconfirmed Vietnam’s independence, with the caveat that the French would maintain control of Vietnam’s defense, diplomacy, and finances.

            In 1950, Ho Chi Min promised the West that he would guarantee Vietnam’s neutrality in the escalating “conflict between the West and the Communist bloc.”^[11] He was ignored. Ho finally saw that the West would not help him. He turned to the Soviets and the Chinese who recognized his regime. In doing so, he confirmed the worst fears of the West. He was now seen as an instrument of Moscow. Lumping him under the label of totalitarian Communism, the path forward was clear. Overnight, the problem had become understandable. It now fit into the comfortable categories described in the Truman Doctrine. Ho Chi Min was an enemy. 

Later that year, congress approved $75 million dollars for the president to use for military aid in Asia. Truman did not sign the legislation until July 26, 1950, but on June 29, three days after the beginning of the Korean War, Truman illegally sent eight C-47 cargo aircraft into Indochina.^[12]

            It became apparent to the US officials that France was over-extended in Indochina. Dean Rusk, the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern affairs, viewed the French efforts in Vietnam as “a stand against Soviet Expansion”^[13] and fought for greater economic and military aid for the French and the Bo Dai government. The US established an embassy in Saigon and attempted to take a greater role in the conflict, but the French stood in the way at every turn. They suspected the US of trying to take over completely and fed them faulty or outright false intelligence information. Though France made efforts to appear as if they were giving the Bo Dai government more independence, they maintained their control of the army “shipping, mines, plantations, banks, breweries, and factories as well as imports and exports.”^[14]

            The next several years proved a protracted and bloody conflict. The forces of Ho Chi Minh, even while making several mistakes, proved more than a match for the French. The French underestimated the capability and the motivation of Ho’s forces. By 1954 the French were stretch to the breaking point and the whole thing came to a head in Dein Bien Phu.

Responding to the move of Ho Chi Minh’s forces into Laos the French decided to occupy the area from where Ho’s troops launched their assault, the valley where Dien Bien Phu was located. The French dropped paratroopers into the valley to hold it for when Ho’s troops returned. They established a garrison and three artillery bases to protect the garrison.^[15]

They were surprised when 35, 000 of Ho Chi Minh’s forces moved to hold the high ground around Dien Bien Phu. They assaulted the three artillery bases the French had set up to protect main garrison and then moved against the garrison itself. The French had miscalculated and now faced the potential loss of their total holdings in Indochina. They asked the US for aid. In particular they asked for a massive air assault to save the French garrison.

Eisenhower was now President and he was faced with the prospect of the withdrawal of France from Indochina. On April 5 he gave a press conference outlining the Domino Theory. Yet the US decided not to intervene on behalf of the French. Eisenhower decided to use the threat of intervention as leverage at the Geneva Talks. On May 7, Dien Bien Phu fell. Ho Chi Minh believed he was now in a position to negotiate from a place of strength and the French anxiously wanted an end to the conflict.^[16]

It took ten weeks before a settlement was reached at Geneva and Ho was left with a great deal less than what he thought he had won on the battlefield. Once again Vietnam was held in tension between the interests of larger international forces. Even when an agreement was reached the United States voted in such a way to leave ambiguity as to its true position. President Eisenhower even stated that the nation “had not in itself been party to or bound by the decisions taken by the conference.”^[17]

The US realized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had gained more than it lost. Its legitimacy was now internationally sanctioned. Through an agreed upon unification elections it was almost guaranteed that the DRV would win the unification of the north and the south. In accordance with the policies of containment the US moved to make sure the loss of North Vietnam did not domino into a loss of all of South East Asia.

Much like it did with NATO the US was the primary leader in the establishment of the South Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). SEATO organized a treaty of mutual defense that “circumvented the provisions in the Geneva agreements that prohibited the Indochina governments from being a part of a military alliance.”^[18] This action, which extended the bias and the paranoia of the containment policy, led to the military intervention of the US in Vietnam.

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                1. Gary Hess, “To Dien Bien Phu: The United States and the French – Viet Minh War, 1946 – 1954,” in Vietnam and the United States: Origens and Legacy of the War, Revised Edition (New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1998), 33.

                2. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York, NY: Viking Press, 1983) 170.

                3. Ibid.

                4. Truman Doctrine – a recording of the President Truman’s speech on March 12, 1947 on youtube.com, retrieved December 6, 2012.

                5. Harry S. Truman, “Draft of speech, March 10, 1947.President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman Papers. Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Accessed December 6. 2012, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/doctrine/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=1947-03-10&documentid=9-8&pagenumber=1 

                6. Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 171.

                7. Robert McMahon, “Statement of U.S. Policy Toward Indochina, 1948,” in Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2008) 50.

                8. Gary Hess, Vietnam and the United States (New York: Twayne’s Publishers, 1998) 31.

                9. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: The Viking Press, 1983) 169.

                10. Ibid., 176.

                11. Ibid., 175.

                12. Ibid., 179

                13. Ibid.

                14. Ibid., 180.

                15. Gary Hess, Vietnam and the United States (New York: Twayne’s Publishers, 1998) 43.

                16. Ibid., 47.

                17. Ibid., 49.

                18. Ibid.

A REVIEW OF JONATHAN BERKEY'S THE FORMATION OF ISLAM

            Jonathan Berkey’s The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East 600 – 1800 is an account of the foundations and evolution of the Islamic tradition told in four parts. Asserting that Muhammad’s monotheism did not arise out of a historical or social vacuum, part one tells the story of the religious and social environment that served as the foundation for the development of Islam. The author asserts that while Christianity provided the basis for several elements of Islam as it evolved, it is best to view the foundations of Islam as influenced primarily by the various expressions of Judaism found in the Near East (10 – 12).

            Berkey describes the exodus of Palestinian Jews to Babylon and other areas in the Near East after the failed Bar Kochba revolt and Rome’s subsequent expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem. The Rabbis who came to Mesopotamia claimed their authority through the “oral law,” which was traced back to Moses and was viewed in parallel with the written law, the Torah. The Rabbis established a series of schools that came to shape the Judaism of the region (14 – 15). Berkey describes a proselytizing impetus in Judaism that lasted into the fourth century, and was formed of Jewish followers of Jesus as Messiah who refused the label Christian. The author depicts the situation of the Jews in the region as much better than is popularly assumed, even describing an independent Jewish State, which existed for seven years (16 – 18). 

            Berkey asserts that the rise of Christianity was the tool that most developing religions in the region used to define themselves against. The author illustrates the fact that there were several Christianities who used Judaism, Paganism, and each other as tools for self-definition. The polemical tone of the inter-Christian debates both helped to define the various Christianities but also, according to Berkey, betrayed a deep uncertainty within the religious competition which inspired the debates in the first place (23). This uncertainty was felt across the spectrum of competing religions but in particular by the monotheistic and dualistic traditions.

Berkey claims that the foundation for this tension was the growing universalistic convictions of the monotheistic traditions and, in a slightly more limited way, the dualistic traditions. Berkey asserts that the rise of the “urban commercial economy” played a significant role in the evolution of religion from a parochial to universalistic tendency. The author maintains that “from monotheism, it is but a short step to an explicit, and potentially militant, universalism” (8). Berkey contends that the syncretistic and regional elements of Paganism diffused much of the tensions that arose along with the universalistic tendencies of the monotheistic traditions (8).

            Berkey then describes the religious and cultural milieu that existed within and around the Fertile Crescent prior to the rise of Islam. He acknowledges several problems with the traditional Islamic picture of life prior to Muhammad and attempts to give a reliable picture of the various tensions in the region. The author points to the Byzantine and the Sassanian empires as a significant cause of the regional tensions. Berkey describes several theological conflicts within the Christian tradition, identifying Christian perspectives that informed the Islamic tradition and illustrating the environment of religious competition. The author also describes the dualistic traditions of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism and identifies several areas where dualism influenced the development and evolution of Islam. Berkey asserts that Christianity and Judaism were not the only forms of monotheism predating Islam and he recognizes the hanifayya as a distinctly Arabic form of monotheism that influenced Islam (39 – 49).

            The author briefly mentions the war between Rome and Iran as illustrating growing regional tensions. Berkey asserts that, by the seventh century, the evolving role that religion played in everyday life had extended to every aspect of personal identity, “social, political, cultural” (51). The author asserts that the early part of the seventh century was marked by widespread apocalypticism, messianism and general religious turmoil and that it was out of this environment that Islam arose (50 – 53).

In the second section, Berkey traces the evolution of Islam from an early state of flux through a long process of maturation. He asserts that Muhammad did not leave the Muslim community with a crystalline theology nor did he leave them with a securely organized society, rather the early Islamic community had to continually work to define themselves in the midst of a rapidly spreading and changing influence and polity.

The author briefly details the difficulties of the historicity of the traditional accounts of the production of the Quran, pointing to several conflicting accounts within the tradition. Berkey asseverates that it was 200 years after the death of Muhammad before the Quran would take on its final form, using this fact as an illustration of the “protracted and uneven” process whereby Islam matured. The author also maintains that, even though the foundations of Islam were found in Arabia, the self-identity of Islam was forged through the religious and social encounters between Arabic Islam and Syria and Iraq (59 – 60).

Berkey claims that previous scholarship supports his assertion that Islam grew out of the social and religious traditions that came before. The author states that the environment that Muhammad grew up in was saturated by apocalyptic and messianic sentiments. He also declares that the differences between the Christian, Jewish, and even Pagan ideologies were not as clear cut as the polemics would make it seem; that the stories and ideas from many variations of each of these traditions were available to be drawn upon by Muhammad and other early Islamic thinkers; and that the idea that the Arabs were children of Abraham through Hagar had long circulated before Islam used it to link itself with the other “Abrahamic” traditions.

The author goes on to trace the evolution of self-identity from kinship based to one based on religious affiliation. At the same time, the author emphasizes the tribal nature of such an identity, identifying this nature as the source of the impetus to survive through conquest. Berkey affirms, however, that Islam eventually moved away from this tribal orientation, and in doing so, it suppressed many of the attributes it inherited from its tribal roots (61 – 69).

Berkey briefly explains the differing accounts of the legitimate heir to the leadership of the community after the death of Muhammad. From the Sunni’s emphasis on Abu Bakr as the legitimate heir to the Shi’i’s emphasis on Ali as the legitimate heir, Berkey affirms the difficulty of the historicity of any of these accounts, asserting what can be understood from these accounts is that the community was in turmoil after the death of Muhammad, which may point to the community’s first civil war. The author reemphasizes the tribal nature of early Arabic Islamic identity and points to this nature as one of the only things that can be affirmed as a motivation for their inspiration to conquer (70 – 73).

            Berkey guides the reader through the early years of Islamic growth, which were marked by religious indeterminacy and sectarianism. From the Umayyad to the Abbasids, the author illustrates expansion and gradual settling of the Islamic community. The author explains the gradual move from a dominant but minority Islamic Near Eastern population to a primarily Islamic Near Eastern population. Along the way, Berkey elucidates the exchange of cultural and religious influences that are inevitable when cultures and religions live in close proximity (76 – 109).

The author demonstrates the theological maturity which resulted from the dialogue between, not only non-Islamic traditions, but the various Islamic sects which arose during these years. This theological maturity served to crystalize the Islamic traditions. Berkey describes how the Abbasids embraced the trappings of the imperial court, lending itself a sense of legitimacy through continuity with the past. The author also illustrates the influence of the Persian traditions in the shaping of Islamic identity as well as the persistent influence of Islamic converts. Berkey claims a primarily urban context for early Islam, emphasizing the merchant elements of the Islamic community, but also illustrating several “debilitating social customs,” such as female circumcision, that became part of the evolving Islamic culture during this period.

The author explores in some detail the development of Twelver Shi’ism, Isma’ilism, and the social and political implications of these movements within Islam. Berkey also explores the evolution of traditionalist Sunni Islam, which, from the beginning, was a form of fundamentalism and concisely illustrates the differences between Shi’i and Sunni Islam. He then briefly explains the development of Sufism and the inclusion of asceticism with Sufi Islam. The author explains that some forms of this tradition posed a threat to the hierarchy of the established Islamic community. He particularly points to the antinomian and individualist elements of some forms of Sufi Islam, whose very nature undermined the foundations of the hard won crystallization of the Islamic identity (130 – 158).

            Berkey describes the impact and response of the non-Muslim inhabitants of the Near East as they became the minority to the Islamic majority. However, the author emphasizes, once again, the mutual exchange of social and religious influence. Berkey emphasizes the magical elements of these influences; charms, incantations, and magic formulas to manipulate spiritual entities were present in ways that freely borrowed from the various religions present in the region. The author also mentions that the educated elite disparaged such low uses of the tradition that marked popular religion. Berkey explains that the Abrahamic traditions, particularly Judaism, were often allowed to operate with virtual freedom. This does not mean they were considered socially equal to the Islamic elite, but they did enjoy considerable autonomy (159 – 175).

            In part four, which Berkey reluctantly refers to as the “medieval Islamic Near East,” the author explores the fragmentation of the Islamic Near East and Islamic life under “alien,” often Turkic, regimes. The author argues that Sunni Islam provided these “others” with a path to legitimacy that would not have been present in Shi’i Islam. The author illustrates the bizarre and markedly apocalyptic directions that Isma’ilis went in response to growing Sunni power. The Christian issue was complex at this time. The author mentions the sizable Coptic Christian population in Egypt and the influence of the Arminian Christian soldiers under the Fatimid rule. Berkey also points out the effect of the crusades as focusing Islamic attention on Jerusalem in a way it had not been before, as well as a resurgence of the militant ideology of the jihad. The crusades caused new forms of community to arise in which the ruling military elite worked in greater cooperation with the religious scholars, which, in some ways, increased the influence of the Islamic jurists (189 – 199).

            According to the author, Sufism in the Middle Period blurred the distinctions between Islam and other traditions. The author also asserts that Sufism maintained a “puzzling” connection with Shi’ism, however, unlike Shi’ism, Sufism never crossed into blatant sectarianism. The author describes Sufism as kind of floating between the boundaries of normative Islam without quite crossing those boundaries. Nevertheless, the author asserts that Sufism had enormous influence on much of the Islamic world (231 – 247). Finally, the author once again raises the issue of popular religion. He concludes that popular religion, while illustrating just how complex and fluid the religious life in the Near East was, was central to Sunni Islam (248 – 257).

            Berkey’s Formation of Islam is a well written and enjoyable work. It is not, however, the best introduction to the study of the history of Islam. The author assumes prior knowledge and blurs the lines in several aspects of Islamic history. For example, the author lumps together asceticism with Sufism from the early days of Sufism on. This is not a given and should be treated with more care. While the author develops his argument for the complex nature of the evolution of the Islamic tradition, the flow of the narrative is sometimes interrupted by the need to modify his statements or brief tangents. All in all, this is a readable work that would well serve any student of the subject, but a certain degree of prior knowledge is necessary to fully understand the scope and importance of the work and to understand the validity of the author’s argument.