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illustrations, I quote from a sermon by Moses Orimolade Tunolase, the founding prophet and evangelist of one of the earliest Aladurachurches, the Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim – a quotation which, according to Peel, represents the ‘authentic attitude’of Aladura Christianity toward the orisa: ‘Sango and Oya, igunu, eyo, adamuorise, gelede, egungun nmwawun (masqueraders) etc. Anyperson still interested in the above is worshipping other gods contrary to the first and second commandments. A live Christian must steerclear of all these practices – Evil communication corrupts good manners’ (in Peel, ‘‘Syncretism and Religious Change,’’ Comparative Studies inSociety and History 10 [1968], p. 132).

My one other criticism is surely much more arbitrary, and largely the quibble of a scholar who is quite interested – too interested, some ofmy students tell me – in theory. As I read Crumbley’s otherwise excellent book, I kept expecting her to theorize in a more developed orsustained way at least two issues that lie very close to the heart of Aladura’s impressive spread, which is now increasingly global: conversionand embodiment. We do read about reasons for people’s entry into Aladura churches, although what these reasons suggest about conver-sion in Africa more broadly is left unsaid. It was to me quite surprising in this regard to see no reference in Spirit, Structure, and Flesh at leastto Robin Horton’s landmark 1971 article on conversion and some of the centrally relevant debates that it has sparked – more surprising stillfor Horton’s use of Peel’s book on the Aladura as a platform, as it were (see Horton, ‘‘African Conversion,’’ Africa: Journal of the InternationalAfrican Institute 41 [1971]: 85–108). As for embodiment, meanwhile, this is a central trope in Crumbley’s analysis, yet she foregoes any sus-tained theorization of the function of embodiment in religion at large, and engages none of the impressive literature on the topic that hasemerged in recent years (the work of Sarah Coakley, Thomas Csordas, Meredith McGuire, and Philip Mellor come to mind in this regard).

Let it be said in conclusion, however, that my criticisms are not at all intended to suggest that Crumbley’s book somehow lacks quality;they are merely allusions to things that I felt were either left unsaid or that could have used further development (the text is rather short, soI should think that her editors at UWP would have allowed for this?). On the whole, I’m left very impressed by Crumbley’s sensitive yetcritical reading of the gendered power differential in Aladura religion, and by her authoritative voice and compelling, respectful personalentry into the story. She casts no ‘ethnographic gaze’ on her subjects and constructs her narrative in an admiringly reflexive manner, whichcould only be the result of the 20 years of sustained interest that she has taken in Aladura spirituality on both the scholarly and personallevel, and by her living among Aladura believers in Nigeria for four continuous years and reaching out to them as a sister in Aladura diasporiccommunities in places like her own hometown of Philadelphia. As part of her extensive research, Crumbley travelled to England to meetwith the venerable Professor Peel, who suggested to her that her own upbringing in an African American Pentecostal church could fruitfullybe brought to inform her study of Aladura, and this has proven to be remarkably true. As such, Spirit, Structure, and Flesh, while primarilybeing a most welcome study of women in Aladura churches, will also be embraced enthusiastically by those of us seeking a deeperunderstanding of African spirituality and its beautiful and far-reaching influence throughout the world.

Terry ReyTemple University (U.S.A.)

E-mail address: trey@temple.edu

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2009.05.002

Rosalind I.J. Hackett, ed., Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets and Culture Wars. London, Equinox Publishing Ltd.,2008, xiv D 480 pp., $95 (hardback), ISBN: 9781845532277, $29.95 (paperback), ISBN: 978 1 845 53228 4.

Whether religious proselytizing is a right deserving legal protection, or an offense requiring regulation, is the subject of vehementdebates in many parts of the world. In recent decades, these debates have attracted the attention of scholars, whose research has definitivelychallenged many assumptions about the ‘private’, ‘interior’ or ‘apolitical’ nature of proselytizing, conversion, or religion even in modernsecular societies. Jean and John Comaroff have shown that the Christian missionary enterprise was inextricably imbricated with Europeanimperialism; more recently, Gauri Viswanathan has demonstrated that religious conversion, far from a mere change in private belief, is oftena form of social and political protest. Proselytizing Revisited extends discussions about the public nature of proselytization by attending to therole of law.

Inspired by the multi-volume series initiated by John Witte at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University (Religionand Human Rights, published by Orbis Books), Proselytizing Revisited seeks ‘to identify the new actors/sources, areas, strategies, media, chal-lenges, as well as new conflicts stemming from proselytizing activity in our globalizing world’, with an eye to the national and internationallegal regimes that shape contemporary debates (Hackett, p. 13). Modern debates about proselytizing are firmly rooted in an internationallanguage of human rights that includes the right to ‘religious freedom’. Proselytizing Revisited makes a valuable contribution to the literatureby bringing together in one volume the variety of arguments made for and against proselytization in different regions and contexts. As theauthors note, even opposition to proselytizing is now often argued in the language of human rights (Mayer, p. 44). This collection of essaysyields a very instructive demonstration of the manifold interests that ‘rights talk’ can be made to serve.

The volume consists of 19 essays. Following the introductory essay by Rosalind Hackett, these are grouped into five sections. Section Iconsists of three ‘theoretical’ essays, which together with the introduction present the themes and debates taken up by the authors, andsuggest some shared conclusions. Sections II through V gather the essays into geographical groupings, dealing with proselytizing activitiesin Africa, Asia, Russia and Central Asia, and the United States. The merit of the volume, however, goes far beyond portraying regional vari-ations in proselytizing practices or debates. When read side by side, the essays in this volume can provide renewed critical perspective onthe uses of ‘rights talk’ in individual instances.

The first two chapters introduce the reader to the problems that have inspired the essays. As Mayer tells us in Chapter 2, it is very clearthat conflicts over proselytizing cannot be reduced to ‘a matter of conflicting religious beliefs’ (p. 48), but are more often a product ofperceived threats to group cohesion or national interests among targeted populations, fears that missionaries’ conduct has often reinforced.Furthermore, even opponents of proselytizing tend to accept, rather than oppose, the principle of ‘religious freedom’ (p. 44). Indeed, as

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Hackett informs us in Chapter 1, the defensibility of proselytizing is being debated even among legal scholars of human rights. Certain prin-ciples justifying the regulation of proselytizing activity, including public order or ethical means, are well established; others, such as theright to ‘cultural survival’, are more contentious. Such criticisms are not only directed toward religious communities from outside; the virtueof proselytizing practices is also being debated, for example, among missiologists and Church historians.

Chapters 3 and 4 lay out the contours of the debates over proselytizing. In Chapter 3, Claerhout and De Roover present perhaps the stron-gest critique of religious proselytizing. They go still further by also condemning the legal protection of proselytization enshrined in the prin-ciple of religious freedom. In Chapter 4, Kao gives reasons for applying a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ to anti-proselytizing arguments. Kao alsolists the types of arguments that are mobilized against proselytization within the logic of human rights. Using Kao’s typology, I will endeavorto illustrate the range of the volume and to demonstrate what I understand to be its great virtue: how the essays read collectively can enrichthe arguments of individual chapters.

The argument of ‘substitution’ is used among Christians to criticize those evangelical practices that encourage Christians to reject oneChristian church in favor of another, practices that are sometimes characterized as ‘sheep-stealing.’ Such arguments are at the heart ofcontroversies between the Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia and the mostly Protestant evangelical movements that have establishedthemselves in the country since the 1990s, when laws favoring religious freedom were passed (see Kazmina). Concerns over ‘church-switch-ing’ are also in the background of controversies about Pentecostal ‘religious advertisements’ in Nigeria, which find their audience predom-inantly among Christians rather than non-Christians (see Ukah).

Another argument against proselytization seeks to set limits by demarcating ‘appropriate targets and tactics’ and criticizing practiceswhich exceed their bounds. Several essays in the volume point to the grounds for such criticism. In many cases, groups have combined pros-elytizing with social welfare and education initiatives, raising questions about the vulnerability of the ‘targets’ of their efforts, and about thepossibility of material inducement to conversion, which it is generally agreed ought to be the product of free, reasoned preference. In SriLanka, NGOs have combined Christian missionary objectives with relief work following the tsunami of 2004 (see Berkwitz). Evangelicalefforts in Russia since the 1990s were most active during times of economic hardship (see Kazmina). Social welfare activity can providea more palatable guise for proselytizing in contexts where religious interference is not welcomed: thus Turkish missionaries conceal Islamicintentions beneath an outward emphasis on education and nationalism in Central Asia (see Balci), and evangelical Christians in the UnitedStates rely on faith-based activism in order to ‘Christianize’ public life despite secular policy (see Elisha).

The argument for ‘non-recruitment’ opposes all activity that aims to change the religious commitments of members of other religiouscommunities. It allows for ‘inreach’ – efforts to strengthen the commitments among religious adherents (for example, ‘Jews making Jewsinto better Jews’), but not ‘outreach’ that seeks to change affiliation (Kao, p. 84). Drawing on the case of India, Claerhout and De Rooverargue that proselytizing is peculiar to Christianity and Islam and alien to Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In their view, proselytizingnecessarily involves ‘religious rivalry: a competition between the teachings, doctrines or belief systems of the two religions in question’(p. 65). They conclude that the concept of religion on which proselytizing is based is a detrimental one, and that the ‘universal decla-ration of a right to religious freedom is part of the problem in India’ (p. 54). Other essays provide different perspectives on this question.Several describe the different stances toward proselytizing among Christian churches; others describe debates among evangelical Chris-tians about whether proselytizing should take the overt form of doctrinal polemics, or the gentler form of modeling Christian virtuesthrough works (see Elisha). Essays by Scott and Mullins describe modern Buddhist movements – the Dhammakaya Temple in Thailand,the Soka Gakkai and others in Japan – that understand Buddhism to include an evangelizing imperative. Scott’s observation that ‘[a]s theconcepts of ‘‘mission’’, ‘‘missionary’’, ‘‘proselytization’’, and ‘‘conversion’’ are fluid in relation to historical and cultural contexts, so too isthe role and practice of proselytization within traditions at specific moments in history’ provides a useful counterpoint to Claerhout andDe Roover’s position (p. 249).

Kao lists two other ‘anti-proselytization’ arguments: one cites ‘group protection’, the other is grounded in ‘anti-imperialism’. Under-standing of both of these arguments requires attention to the historical experiences that have linked religious proselytizing, religious iden-tity, and concerns with ‘cultural survival’, national unity, or resistance to foreign domination. Makau Mutua, Professor of Law at theUniversity of Buffalo Law School, is invoked more than once for his position that the free reign of proselytizing religions in Africa has meant‘cultural genocide’ for African religions, which ought to be protected against this outcome (Hackett, pp. 6–7; Kao, p. 88). Sharkey arguespersuasively that opposition to proselytizing in modern Egypt is a product of the experience of imperialism. In an essay on Buddhist Nation-alist opposition to Christian evangelizing in Sri Lanka, Berkwitz, like Sharkey, demonstrates that fears of imperialism are as rooted in thepresent as in the past. NGOs and evangelical Christians have rallied the support of European and American governments in their struggleagainst efforts to pass national legislation limiting conversions in Sri Lanka. The United States’ International Religious Freedom Act (1995)and the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) are two instances of how the right to proselytize may be encoded ininternational law in ways that carry the threat of sanctions against non-complying countries. Berkwitz’s remark that ‘the problem with thediscourse of rights. is that it obscures the contingencies of its arguments with a universalist appeal to human freedoms’ makes sense inlight of these global realities (p. 223). However, there are no simple answers. Several essays foreclose any easy association of Christian evan-gelism with imperialism by documenting proselytization initiatives originating in the ‘global south’ or in Asia (cf. Freston, DeBernardi,Kovalchuk).

When read collectively, the essays in Proselytization Revisited provide a caution against generalizing arguments about proselytizing. Sucharguments can cut two ways. As Kao observes, ‘[w]hile the integrity and cohesiveness of groups can indeed be threatened’ by proselytizingactivity, it also behooves us to turn a critical eye on the group identities that are defended by means of such arguments (p. 89), and toconsider which groups might be disadvantaged (see Richardson).

This brings me to a limitation of the volume. As the authors observe, its aim is to treat ‘proselytizing as process’. Absent from the volume,therefore, is a consideration of those who become the ‘target’ of proselytizing groups, and who may pursue any number of agentive relationswith them, including but not limited to seeking conversion. As the authors observe, this subject has been treated elsewhere. But it could beargued that to be complete, any critical assessment of the arguments mobilized for or against proselytizing must consider the perspectivesof those who perceive association with proselytizing agencies to bring them some benefit. The trouble with silence on this subject is perhapsillustrated by the following observation: although the essays refer repeatedly to the anti-proselytizing stance of the Hindu Right in contem-porary India – as an example of a nationalist ‘group protection’ stance, an ‘anti-imperial’ stance, or of religious opposition of the

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‘non-recruitment’ variety – there is no mention of the real threat that this stance poses to the security of the life and liberty of religiousminorities and depressed caste groups in India today (cf. Mayer, Freston, Sharkey, Claerhout and De Roover). Hindu Nationalist oppositionto proselytizing in India especially since Independence has been fanned by the periodic occurrence of mass conversions by low-caste andDalit (formerly ‘Untouchable’) groups to Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism. The evident social and political stakes of such conversions point toan important facet of proselytizing which is concealed, rather than revealed, by arguments about ‘group protection,’ ‘anti-imperialism’, or‘non-recruitment.’ It is not only global missionary groups, national elites, and international human rights lawyers who have a stake in theadjudication of proselytization; nor are these the only groups who have learned to stake their claims in the language of human rights. Thevoices of the proselytized must also be taken into consideration.

This limitation of scope aside, Proselytization Revisited brings together a wealth of research on the controversies proselytization hasprovoked, the forms of legal regulation that have been imposed upon it, and the techniques by which proselytizing groups have negotiatedand contested legal regulation (cf. DeBernardi, Rahn, Balci). This wealth of perspectives from around the world offers valuable criticalperspective on how the issues are framed in any given context.

C.S. AdcockWashington University in St. Louis (U.S.A.)E-mail address: cadcock@artsci.wustl.edu

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2009.05.003

Oliver Scharbrodt, Islam and the Baha’i Faith: A comparative study of Muhammad ‘Abduh and ‘Abdul-Baha ‘Abbas. Abingdon/New York,Routledge (2008). 237pp., £76 (Hardback), ISBN: 978 0 415 77441 3.

Baha’ism and its antecedent Babism are topics that have been seriously neglected by Islamicists and scholars of Iranian history. Thereasons are not hard to find. For all its intrinsic interest, Babism was a short-lived movement that fell far short of its original hopes to revo-lutionize Shi’ite Islam. Baha’ism moved rapidly away from any identification with Islam to become a separate religious movement that hasspread internationally, but never made any serious numerical growth. The greatest neglect here has been from sociologists of religion.

Oliver Scharbrodt provides a striking exception to this history of disinterest and neglect. He does not just take a second look at the twomovements; he places them firmly within the history of modern Islamic reform. The result is a compelling achievement that opens up newavenues for research in both areas and for the re-examination of matters chronologically prior to and after the two men whose careers formthe basis for the present work. Scharbrodt’s own research is just what a study like this demands: detailed, wide-ranging, and careful.Although previous writers, notably Juan Cole, have done well in recreating the reformist milieu in which the Baha’i prophet Mirza Husayn’Ali ‘‘Baha’ Allah’’ (1817–1892) and his son ’Abbas Effendi ‘Abd al-Baha’ (1844–1921) built a modernizing, post-Islamic faith in late 19th-century Ottoman Turkey and Syria, Scharbrodt goes a step further. He writes parallel accounts of ‘Abd al-Baha’ and that enduring figureof modern Islamic reform, Muhammad ’Abduh (1849–1905), and he does so by demonstrating that, however dissimilar their lives mayseem on the surface, they converge in unexpected and creative ways.

This is not a book that will appeal greatly to either Baha’is or Muslims. Baha’is prefer to see the lives and teachings of their holy figures asseverely divorced from the currents in which they swam, and modern admirers of ’Abduh (including his Salafi offspring) are deeply averse tothe thought of any link between their hero and what represents, after all, the Great Apostasy of modern Islam. And it’s not just that. Like hisfather, ‘Abd al-Baha’ has suffered from a very limited range of biographical information, mainly because his Baha’i contemporaries preserveda limited range of hagiographically focussed information. ’Abduh too suffered from a hagiographical spin, particularly from his discipleRashid Rida, who emphasized his connections to orthodoxy while sidelining his involvement with Sufi mysticism and the radicalism ofhis mentor Jamal al-Din al-Afghani.

That, of course, is precisely what makes this such a groundbreaking study. Scharbrodt shows how Baha’ism moved from its roots in thedoctrinally bizarre and jihadist Babi movement to become a liberal, pacifist, and reformist sect that finally declared itself a post-Islamic reli-gion. And he paints a fresh picture of ’Abduh, in which he emphasizes his revolutionary roots through his long association with and personaldevotion to Afghani, and his mystical training in Sufism, before describing the passage to a mixture of educational reform and scripturaltraditionalism.

Scharbrodt focuses throughout on the relevance of Weber’s theories concerning charismatic authority, a marked feature of Babism andBaha’ism, but also present in the Sufi circles in which the young ’Abduh found much of his religious inspiration. And just as Baha’ism under-went the beginnings of a radical routinization of charisma during the lifetime of Abd al-Baha’s grandson, Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957), so didSalafism under ’Abduh’s leading disciple Rashid Rida (1865–1935) move away from its charismatic underpinnings to the routinization offraternities like the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to Scharbrodt, While the physical encounter between ’Abdul-Baha and Muhammad ’Abduh initiated this study, their historicalrelationship was sidelined and almost became irrelevant in the course of the research. Rather than excavating letters, sifting throughmemoirs and biographers, collecting newspaper articles in order to discover clues on how their relationship might have evolved throughouttheir lives, contextualizing and comparing these two religious reformers promised to be a more exciting research project – exciting becauseit was unusual, as it connects to religious movements which are normally not brought together’ (pp. 169–170).

Underpinning the narrative of this comparative intellectual biography is Scharbrodt’s detailed weaving of the ‘contextualization’ referredto above. Religious movements, especially those in the first flush of youth, often feel obliged to cover up or re-write their origins, to makethem conform to later doctrinal and historiographical opinion. For those Muslims who see ’Abduh as the doyen of modern Islamic ortho-doxy, his personal roots in Sufism and in the heterodox thought of the political dissident Jamal al-Din al-Afghani represent a stain on hischaracter that has to be covered by a more conventional portrayal of his early life.