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.

A REVIEW OF NILE GREEN’S SUFISM: A GLOBAL HISTORY

          Nile Green’s Sufism: A Global History is a four-chapter survey of the history, influence, and spread of Sufism. The introduction gives the author’s arguments as to why another survey of the history of Sufism is needed. He points out that the prominent perspective of most of the histories of Sufism have relied on the Christian Intellectual Protestant view of “mysticism,” which emphasizes the antinomian and anti-political character of the tradition (2). The author convincingly argues that this perspective artificially limits and marginalizes Sufism and pushes the Sufis into the background of the political and economic history of Islam; that, in fact, the Sufis were, in many ways, the shapers and supporters of the Islamic establishment; that Sufism was a tradition of “powerful knowledge, practices and persons;” and that the tradition of Sufism was rooted in the wider Islamic model of authority (3 – 9).

            Chapters one and two cover the years from 850 to 1400 C.E. In these chapters the author admits to relying on previous scholarship and that his purpose in these chapters is to provide a historical foundation for the more difficult task of the development of Sufism after 1400. The author asserts that Sufism existed prior to the general use of the term “Sufi” as we understand it (16). He identifies one of the primary problems with the previous historical perspective as “vertical process,” which, he asserts, views the received past as “an irresistible agent.” He argues for a “horizontal process,” which understands the received past as a “set of cultural resources to be continued, adapted or abandoned at will.” This is to say that a full understanding of the “why” of the history and influence of the developing tradition of Sufism requires an understanding of both the past, which was drawn upon to provide legitimacy and authority, and the present, which provided resources for innovation and the securing of power (17).

Green traces the origins of Sufism to the same group of scholars who worked to raise the prominence of the “thousands of reports of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad known as the Hadith,” as well as Quranic scholars and popular preachers in eighth century Iraq (24 – 25). The author places the concept of wilaya or “friendship with God” at the core of the Islamic concept of sainthood, which repeatedly plays a central role in the Sufi tradition. He also emphasizes that the developing tradition had to compete with and eventually incorporated the pietistic asceticism and mysticism of such groups as the Karramiyya, the Malamatiyya, and the Hakimiyya of Khurasan and Central Asia (44 – 54).

            The author further connects the Shafi’i legal scholars to the evolving Sufi tradition. He points out that the majority of Sufis in Khurasan were also members of the Shafi’i school. He asserts that the intellectual efficiency and formality of the Shafi’i school contributed to the doctrinal and structural development of the Sufis in the region. This link also reasserts his proposition that the Sufis were part of the mainstream since the Shafi’i was part of the “urban legal and property-owning establishment (51).” The author spends some effort illustrating the influence of major Sufi thinkers such as Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, who continues to influence Islamic thinkers to this day and who supports the author’s assertion that Sufis were not anti-establishment individualists. Green then focuses on the rise of the Cult of Saints and the emergence of the Sufi brotherhoods, which he terms as “vernacularization of Sufi teaching.” According to the author, the Cult of Saints provided a bridge between the esoteric methods of the Sufis, which would have an inevitably limited audience, and the everyday life of the common Muslim. The Saints were venerated in architecture, art, ritual, and story, providing a narrative that would teach principles and practices of Sufism and transform Sufi teachers, past and present, into “Friends of God.” This contributed to the growing social status of Sufis. As Friends of God, they possessed the very powers of creation, and many miracles were attributed to them. These powers led to a number of Sufis rising to positions of authority as counselors and even viziers as well as increasing their influence in the countryside. According to the author, to the rural Muslim, Sufism was Islam. The Cult of Saints also helped to legitimate Sufism’s chain of authenticity, which was necessary both for the self-image of the Sufis and for their claim to authority. This chain connected the teachers of Sufism to the Saints of the past back to Muhammad. (71 – 102).

            The author illustrates the often ambiguous relationship between the Sufi brotherhoods and the State in chapter three. Sufi elites drew upon the integrity provided by their illustrious lineages and miraculous powers to establish themselves in positions of authority within the state or to establish states of their own. However, during the colonial era, many of these bastions of power and influence crumbled under the pressures of the European powers, and the Sufis found themselves on the forefront of colonial expansion. The author argues that the early modern period drove Sufism in two directions. The first direction saw the tradition co-opted by a series of people who selectively used the loyalty and authority of affiliation with the tradition to meet the demands of their situations. The second direction saw the consolidation of the disparate symbols into brotherhoods that provided a networking mechanism rather than a mechanism to reproduce tradition. These networking mechanisms throughout Central Asia served as “surrogate states” as the Islamic community grew up around the Sufis (124 – 167).

In Chapter four, the author follows the spread of Sufism through Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States where support of the networking mechanism of the Sufi brotherhoods served as a support for the evolution of the tradition in new directions. The author points to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a period that saw the rise of several pseudo-Sufi organizations which coopted the teachings and integrity of the Sufi tradition for personal fame and prestige. As the author moves into the middle years of the twentieth century, he points out that many scholars of the time believed that the intellectual pressures of modernity would spell the end of the Sufi tradition. For some branches of the tradition, in response to the changing religious marketplace, this evolution included a move away from identification with Islam. For others it meant a progressive vision of Sufism as an international Islamic movement. Green uses Fethullah Gulen and the Gulen Movement to illustrate this move as a new direction of integrity and authority for Sufism (187 – 227).

            Nile Green convincingly makes his point about the need for a horizontal perspective in understanding the topic. Through the geographical and cultural scope of the book, the author makes good on the claimed scope as a “global” history. There are several areas, however, where the author needed to provide more evidence for his argument. For example, his juxtaposition of Sufism and asceticism is too extreme to be a given. He needed to provide more evidence for this conclusion. Another example of a need for more information is the treatment of the Sufis role in the holy war against Russia in the nineteenth century. A third example is the relative lack of information on the relationship between Sufism and the anti-Sufi Wahhabism, which made such an international mark in the twenty-first century. Even with these complaints, Nile Green’s work proves to be a valuable resource for the non-specialist’s search for reliable information on Sufism as well as for the student looking for a good introduction to the subject. The book is well structured, well written, and enjoyable. 

THE EVOLUTION OF BIRTHING PRACTICES IN AMERICA BEFORE 1900

          Science tends to reflect the established attitudes and institutions of an age. The shift from the traditional female to male dominated midwifery in the United States occurred as a result of scientific advances coupled with the developing ideology of the place of the woman in society. Traditional midwifery was an empirical discipline, often built on the foundation of the lessons learned from the observations of generations of women. The core of the midwife’s discipline was to allow nature to take its course, which was an often a slow and painful process. This core attitude would compete with the new, male-midwifery and the growing presence of medical doctors, which offered a swift and painless birth through the use of forceps and anesthesia; however, this promise was rarely fulfilled. Medical intervention, at best, did little to help but also did little harm and, at worst, caused life long consequences and sometimes death for the mother and her child.  

            In the early part of the seventeenth century two Hungarian born brothers were responsible for the invention of the forceps. Both brothers were doctors and they went to great lengths to keep this invention secret. The forceps were invented to free an infant that was impacted in the birth canal without having to kill the infant during its removal. Prior to his invention, if a child were stuck in the birth canal, the midwife would call a barber/surgeon who would use a hook or a tie to remove the child. This practice usually caused the death of the child and often the death of the mother not long afterwards. The invention of the forceps remained secret for close to a hundred years. However, by the middle of the eighteenth century, forceps were widely known among English doctors. The forceps were far from a perfect instrument, and would go through a number of modifications over the centuries.[1]

            William Smellie was a pioneer in the teaching of obstetrics and midwifery. He was the first to develop a series of rules for the safe use of the forceps. Largely self-taught, he never the less returned to school after he had begun his medical practice to gain the education he felt he lacked. Around 1742 he began a series of public courses, teaching his theories on how to best use the forceps. Smellie was self taught and had developed a system as to how and why forceps should be used to hasten the birthing process. He designed a wooden and leather doll as a stand-in for the mother. The belly of the doll would be filled with beer and a wax replica of an infant. Smellie was able to use the doll to give his students practice in the processes of birth.

Smellie’s motivations and reasoning for the use of the forceps were sound; however, many of the students who attended his midwifery training courses saw his methods as an easy way to make a living; they would use forceps to hurry the birthing process so they could take more clients. Because they were able to make the birthing process faster, Smellie’s students began to be preferred over traditional midwives, allowing them to charge their clients more money.[2]

American doctors who had been trained in Europe began to see the use of forceps in midwifery as a means to both making a stable living and a key to bringing medicine to the fore in American society. Several of these doctors designed American midwifery courses to train both male and female midwives in European birthing sciences. Few women came to these courses, but men flocked to them. Although cultural norms played a part in the absence of women, these norms weren’t wholly responsible for their absence. In England the government subsidized the programs, but in the United States the cost of the programs was often too high for many women who would have otherwise attended them.[3]

The use of forceps allowed for a faster birth and a safer freeing of the infant when stuck in the birth canal, but when they were used to reach the child deep in the womb, or were used roughly, they could tear the vaginal wall, or cause other internal wounds. When not used carefully, the forceps could also damage or even kill the infant. They were also perfect instrument for the passage of disease from one woman to another. Smellie’s courses attempted to teach the proper timing and use of forceps, but his students were accused of making each of the above mistakes. However, they speed of birth offered by the use their use often made doctors and male-midwives a preferred option for a birthing attendant.

After 1810, the competition between traditional midwives and the new, male dominated midwifery began to gradually drive the traditional midwife out of business. Driven by this competition, doctors began to opt for greater levels of intervention, hurrying the birthing process along even more. The evolving culture of “true womanhood” also contributed to the reduction of female midwives among the upper classes. It was unacceptable to mix the genders, and it was believed that the female mind was not suited for the education and training that was necessary to become a doctor or educated midwife. This was an attitude for which doctors provided “scientific” proof.[4]

Pain and complications in childbirth took on a new character in the nineteenth century. The wearing of corsets from an early age caused malformations of the ribcage and misplacement of the organs causing greater degrees of pain and other complications. Doctors warned against the wearing of corsets as a cause of complications in childbirth; however, upper class women preferred the look of the corset to the look of the natural waist and ignored these warnings.[5]

Strangely, various scientific manuals claimed that pain was natural for the weaker female, but birth pain was considered abnormal. It was believed that not all women suffered pain in childbirth. Many doctors shared the view that pain in childbirth was unnatural, and the idea that Native American women did not suffer in childbirth was often used to defend this view. Dr. M. L. Holbrook reasoned that “parturition is likely to be painless in proportion as the mother is physically perfect…”[6] In this way the physical and moral health of the woman was considered a direct cause of pain in childbirth. This was one more standard added to the ideal of the perfect woman. If she would simply fulfill this feminine ideal, she would not suffer pain in childbirth. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the leaders of the suffragist movement in America, gave a lecture in which she supported this viewpoint:

We must educate our daughters to think that motherhood is grand, and that God never cursed it… If you suffer, it is not because you are cursed of God, but because you violate his laws… We know that among Indians the squaws do not suffer in child-birth. They will step aside from the ranks, even on the march, and return in a short time bearing with them the new-born child. What an absurdity, then, to suppose that only enlightened Christian women are cursed… I am the mother of seven children. My girlhood was spent mostly in the open air. I early imbibed the idea that a girl is just as good as a boy, and I carried it out. I would walk five miles before breakfast, or ride ten on horseback. After I was married, I wore my clothing sensibly… I never compressed my body out of its natural shape. When my first four children were born, I suffered very little. I then made up my mind that it was totally unnecessary for me to suffer at all… The night before the birth of the child I walked three miles. The child was born without a particle of pain…[7]

Despite these beliefs, pain in childbirth remained a persistent and common issue. In an effort to relieve the unnatural suffering of women, some doctors began to use anesthesia in childbirth. Dr. Walter Channing of Boston first used anesthesia as an aid to childbirth in 1848. He encouraged other doctors in its use, but it was a confusing topic with contradictory claims and methods. There was confusion as to what chemical to use. Some doctors preferred chloroform, others like ether. Each doctor seemed to have his own methodology for the use of whatever chemical he preferred. Most American doctors found the whole thing too confusing to make any sense out of. If they used it at all, most American doctors used anesthesia only once the baby crowned, rather than when it would have been most effective.[8]

The second half of the nineteenth century saw the development of several non-medical treatments for pain in childbirth. Mostly preventative in nature, these treatments were designed to ease childbirth through their conscientious use throughout pregnancy. The sitz-bath was one such treatment. The sitz-bath prescription was to be individual; it was considered “quackish” to prescribe the same treatment to everyone.[9] The bath could be hot or cold, it could be a sponge bath or immersion, and the timing of the bath was to be determined by the doctor and the individual together. The frequency of the bath was important because it was believed that bathing too often could do harm. These baths were in addition to the normal bathing for cleanliness and were designed to “strengthening the nerves.”[10] Vigorous rubbing of the abdomen and limbs was usually included as long as the body was not preoccupied with digestion.[11]

Another method of ensuring a painless birth was the “fruit diet,” which was used alone or along with the use of the sitz-bath. The fruit diet was comprised of eating primarily acidic fruits with light grains and fish. The goal of the diet was to ensure that the bones of the child were soft and “all in gristle;” that they remained as close as possible to the original “gelatinous pulp” of the fetus [12] Preventative measures and anesthesia may have aided in the relief of birth pain for those who could afford them, but such methods did little to prevent or relieve the common complications of birth such as puerperal fever or vaginal fistula.

Puerperal fever is a bacterial infection contracted during childbirth. Reaching epidemic proportions several times in Europe, American women, who gave birth at home, were not typically in danger on a large scale until the nineteenth century when women increasingly gave birth in the hospital. Most of the time, the infectious bacteria are passed to the individual from other patients or autopsy matter via the doctor or the equipment. It was quite easy to infect large numbers of women in maternity wards and hospitals in this way. Some forms of this infection were so virulent that it could pass on the clothing of anyone exposed. The symptoms were abdominal inflammation, blood poisoning, and eventual death.[13]  

Oliver Wendell Holmes was the first to suggest that doctors were at least partially responsible for the spread of the infection.[14] The backlash to his claims was quick and sometimes abusive. In 1854, Dr. Charles Meigs published a scathing rebuttal of Holmes’ paper claiming that, because doctors were gentleman, their hands were clean. Any attempt to insinuate that doctors could be the “medium of transmission” was to imply that doctors were “both dirty and culpable.”[15]

Dr. Holmes published a response in 1855 where he made clear the evidence and his reasoning. This work is cogent in its arguments. One portion, in particular, is worth quoting at length:

Dr. Simpson attended the dissection of two… cases, and freely handled the diseased parts. His next four cases of midwifery were affected with puerperal fever, and it was the first time he had seen it in practice. As Dr. Simpson is a gentleman (Dr. Meigs, as above,) and as ‘a gentleman’s hands are clean,’ (Dr. Meigs’s Sixth Letter,) it follows that a gentleman with clean hands may carry the disease.[16]

In Vienna a doctor named Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was able to statistically show that puerperal fever is contagious and to prove certain measures that were effective in its prevention. He was able to show that women who never reached the hospital or gave birth on the hospital steps did not contract the fever. He also noted that a colleague died with the same symptoms of the fever after having performed an autopsy. He concluded that the cause was decomposing flesh, and he instituted a practice of sterile procedures that reduced the death rate from 459 in 1846, to 88 in 1848.[17]

Dr. Holmes also suggested a rigorous series of sterile procedures, but these were only partially effective since no one understood the cause of the fever, until Louis Pasteur discovered that streptococci bacteria were the primary cause. He was also able to show that the risk of contracting the fever was much greater in women who had been wounded during childbirth.[18]

Since many doctors did not understand Pasteur’s work, they were still reluctant to believe that they were carriers of a virulent disease. Many of these same doctors, however, followed the advice of Holmes and others like him and attempted to prevent puerperal fever. Unfortunately, the aseptic methods used were often inadequate and the performance of these methods lax. Prior to 1885 the statistics of morbidity are unreliable since causes of death were not accurately recorded. Yet it is clear that the fever was still present and repeatedly reached epidemic proportions. It wasn’t until the 1940s, when penicillin became available, that there was a curb in the deaths cause by the fever.[19]

One of the most unfortunate results of the dangerous and ignorant childbirth practices of the nineteenth century was fistula. Fistula is an abnormal opening between two organs or between one organ and outside the body. Caused by impacted birth or the misuse of childbirth tools, fistula was most often a tear between the vagina and the bladder, the vagina and rectum, and sometimes both.[20]

Most often fistula is caused by the misuse of instruments, but it can be caused by a prolonged impaction where the child’s head is lodged against the soft tissues of the mother’s body. This prolonged impaction causes the blood supply to cease resulting in the death of the tissue. After a few days, the dead tissue falls off and an opening between organs is created. This condition is most likely to occur in women who have suffered from Vitamin D deficiency, which means people who are poorly fed and not often in the sunlight. In the nineteenth century, fistula was common among the poor. Having a condition that causes continual leakage from the bladder and/or the rectum into the vaginal canal often caused extreme social consequences.[21] Several doctors worked with varying degrees of effort and success. All experiments were surgical and performed without anesthesia.[22] When the cost is so high, such as social isolation due to the constant stench and mess, people are willing to do almost anything.

In 1845, Dr. Marion Simms was called to help a seventeen-year-old slave-girl who had been in labor for three days. He used forceps to quickly deliver the baby, but he knew it was likely that the mother would develop fistula. Three days later he was proven correct. She developed holes in her vagina leading to both her bladder and her rectum. Over the next several weeks he was called to help more women with similar conditions. This experience had a lasting effect on Dr. Simms.[23]

While attending to an elderly patient with a different condition, Dr. Simms had a  revelation as to how he might be able to operate on a fistula and actually cure it. He had to place the women in the “all fours” position in order to work on her, and he saw that the vagina filled with air in this position. He realized that he would be able to operate on both forms of vaginal fistula with the patient in this position. He was able to recruit several slave women who had the condition and were willing to go through virtually anything to be cured. It took over four years and dozens of operations, all without anesthesia, but eventually he made it work. Dr. Simms went on to have a lucrative career that included many firsts in the field of medicine.[24]

This discussion of advances and setbacks in childbirth practices prior to the twentieth century are representative of the evolution of the birthing practices in America during this time period. The years leading up to the twentieth century saw many innovations in the birthing practices of the United States. The evolution of these practices is intimately tied to the development of medicine as a respectable science. From traditional forms of midwifery through the sometimes arrogant and misunderstood advances in the field, by the twentieth century, the entire world had changed, and the practice of birthing science with it. As abhorrent as some of these practices may seem, they still managed to move us forward in knowledge and understanding of the complexities involved in the process of childbirth.[25]

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            1. William Leishman, M.D. A System of Midwifery (Glasgow, McMillan and Co., 1873), 515.

            2. Elizabeth Nihell, A treatise on the art of midwifery (London, A. Morney, 1760), 51.

            3. Walter W. Wertz and Dorothy C. Wertz, Lying-In (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 44.

            4. Ibid. 47.

            5. Ibid. 112.

            7. Ibid. 198.

            6. Mrs. P. B. Saur, M.D., Maternity: A Book for Every Wife and Mother (Chicago, L.P. Miller and Company, 1888), 199 – 200.

            8. Wertz, Lying-In, 118.

            9. M. L. Holbrook, M.D., Parturition without Pain (New York, Wood and Holbrook, 1878), 45.

            10. Ibid., 46.

            11. Ibid., 48.

            12. Ibid., 53.

            13. Wertz, Lying-In, 120.

            14. Oliver W. Holmes, “Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever,” The Harvard Classics 38, no. 5 (2001): 1909 – 14, accessed July 28, 2013, http://www.bartleby.com/38/5/1.html

            15. Wertz, Lying-In, 122.

            16. Oliver W. Holmes, Puerperal Fever as a Private Pestilences (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855), 60.

            17. Wertz, Lying-In, 121.

            18. Ibid., 125.

            19. Ibid., 126.

            20. Ann Dally, Women Under the Knife (Edison: Castle Books, 2001), 20.

            21. Ibid., 22.

            22. Ibid., 24.

            23. Ibid., 25.

            24. Ibid., 26.

            25. For more information on childbirth injuries in the world today, including Obstetric fistula, here is a documentary and website. Both cover the problem of childbirth injuries in Ethiopia. The social stigma, and emotional pain of these women give insight into what women in the United States suffered prior to the twentieth century. The documentary can be found here: A Walk to Beautiful. The website can be found here: website.