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Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies: Understanding the Past

Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies: Understanding the Past 96 Book Reviews Szpiech claims that these stories “make more sense” as narratives than they do as history because they are attempts to demonstrate something that is otherwise invisible. (19) Rather than try to depict the actual inner conversion itself, Szpiech therefore works from the narratives that these conversions leave in their wake. He is less interested in conversion as a person’sexperienceofa “thing felt,” than as a narrative construction, a “thing made.” (3) “I aim, then, not only to look at the text (rather than through it), but more important, to look around it, to ask why it was made and why it was placed in its context [ … ] neither the rep- resentation nor the reality can stand apart from the other.” (19) This is stated more boldly elsewhere: like “the saint’s vita, the polemical conversion narrative literally is the convert.” (23) Szpiech argues convincingly that a conversion narrative is a chronotype, whether or not it happens to be a factual account at all: “Conversion stories function as a sort of shorthand of belief, summing up an entire theology of history in a single symbolic gesture of faith.” (219) The narrative stands in for, reenacts, and, in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean Taylor & Francis

Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies: Understanding the Past

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Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies: Understanding the Past

Abstract

96 Book Reviews Szpiech claims that these stories “make more sense” as narratives than they do as history because they are attempts to demonstrate something that is otherwise invisible. (19) Rather than try to depict the actual inner conversion itself, Szpiech therefore works from the narratives that these conversions leave in their wake. He is less interested in conversion as a person’sexperienceofa “thing felt,” than as a narrative construction, a “thing...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2015, Stephen Donnachie
ISSN
1473-348X
eISSN
0950-3110
DOI
10.1080/09503110.2015.1002239
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

96 Book Reviews Szpiech claims that these stories “make more sense” as narratives than they do as history because they are attempts to demonstrate something that is otherwise invisible. (19) Rather than try to depict the actual inner conversion itself, Szpiech therefore works from the narratives that these conversions leave in their wake. He is less interested in conversion as a person’sexperienceofa “thing felt,” than as a narrative construction, a “thing made.” (3) “I aim, then, not only to look at the text (rather than through it), but more important, to look around it, to ask why it was made and why it was placed in its context [ … ] neither the rep- resentation nor the reality can stand apart from the other.” (19) This is stated more boldly elsewhere: like “the saint’s vita, the polemical conversion narrative literally is the convert.” (23) Szpiech argues convincingly that a conversion narrative is a chronotype, whether or not it happens to be a factual account at all: “Conversion stories function as a sort of shorthand of belief, summing up an entire theology of history in a single symbolic gesture of faith.” (219) The narrative stands in for, reenacts, and, in

Journal

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2015

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