Book Review: 'Islam as Power: Shi‛i Revivalism in the Oeuvre of Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallāh' by Dr Bianka Speidl

Providing an in-depth and extensive analysis of the concept of power as articulated by Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (1935–2010), this case study analyses the systemic conceptualisation of power and his argumentation of sacralising Islamised power. The volume also offers a quick overview of how the concept was understood and articulated by other Shi‛ite jurists such as Ayatollah Khomeini.

Examining Fadlallah’s oeuvre, in particular his seminal book Islam and the Logic of Power [ al-Islam wa-mantiq al-quwwa ], this book focuses on the narrative itself, which played a central role in the radical transformation that occurred in the Shi‛te concept of empowerment and its recognition as a necessity. The analysis of Fadlallah’s conceptualisation and argumentation illustrates the mechanism of sacralising righteous power as well as the means of gaining it. Fadlallah reinterpreted Shi‛sm as a project of empowerment to initiate and sustain an “impulse of power” amongst the Lebanese Shi‛tes in the most critical moment of modern Lebanese history.