Poliitical Science

atching the ever-increasing salience of revolutionary ideologies in the Islamic world that take on a n Islamic M f orm, the literature on Islam in general and on such movements in particular has burgeoned during recent years. Some scholarly Western writers have so often found themselves responding to prevailing misconceptions about and ignorance of these movements that they have been accused of being apologists. The works I am focusing on here represent a new offensive by secularist Muslim writers that are joining the crusade against "fundamentalism." An Inappropriate Term First, a word about the term "fundamentalism" that the works Challenging "Islamic Fundamentalism"-G. Perry 20 Digest of Mid& East Studies

In Bayesian inference, uncertainty is expressed in terms of probability. More important, in Bayesian inference, probability is subjective: it is belief. Bayesian inference starts when we formulate a model that we believe is a good representation of the situation that holds our interest. We then construct a distribution over the parameters of the model-which are unknown-where that distribution represents our prior beliefs about the situation before we observe data. According to Baye's Law, the posterior distribution for these parameters given the data we have observed is proportional to the product of our prior beliefs and the joint probability of the observed variables, given the parameters. These are the components of Bayesian inference: model, prior beliefs, data, and posterior beliefs. Perhaps no other recent development in modern statistics has attracted more attention than the renaissance in Bayesian methods. Researchers from many fields including political science have turned to Bayesian methods and Bayesian posterior simulation to expand their toolkit and engage new research questions. In support of these goals, a number of texts have been published to aid students and practitioners, and they have enabled the expansion of political science questions to Bayesian methods. Social science monographs, however, are notably scarce. One of the signal contributions of Bayesian Methods: A Social and Behavioral Sciences Approach is to reintroduce Bayesian inference and computing to a general social sciences audience. This is an important contribution-one that will make demand for this book high. Rather than limit this contribution to the reintroduction of Bayesian inference, though, Jeff Gill has gone some way toward reinventing the graduate-level methodology textbook. On the one hand, Bayesian Methods covers all the basics necessary for students and practitioners with moderate statistics training to apply Bayesian methods to traditional regression-type problems. Discussion of the foundations of Bayesian inference, the generalized linear model, and the choice of priors provide a firm foundation for those wanting to expand their research to new methods. Even though other texts review this material in greater detail, Gill expands the material by providing computational guidance for those wishing to estimate these models in R, and exhaustive references for those wishing to reinforce their understanding of the theory presented. Once the reader is comfortable

Board Conflicts within the Middle East cannot be separated from its peoples' culture. Seventh-century Arab tribal culture influenced Islam and its adherents' attitudes toward. 14 Muslim generals instituted similar practices in Afghanistan and India. ?Syllabus-History 105-200801 14 Jan 2008. session devoted entirely to the Rise of Islam in 610 CE.

categories; the scholastic method (based on disputation and d i a l e c t i c) ; and f i n a l l y the scholastic community: professors and their assistants, a l l of whom were maintained by the i n s t i t u t e of waqf. No other monograph, either in Arabic or a Western language, has so successfully wedded such a mass of detail to an overriding conceptual view of the forces that established the madrasa'% primacy and i t s educational mission. Any scholar probing traditional patterns of learning in Islam w i l l thus find Makdisi's study required reading. Yet, as one who has approached similar topics from an alternative methodology, I should point out that Makdisi's theoretical perspective has led him to certain questionable generalizations. For example, he states that the term mudarris, without complement, designated a professor of law, while shaykh referred to a professor of the Koranic sciences, Uadxth, grammar and the l i t e r a r y arts (pp. 153, 188). My own biographical research on Cairene savants in the fifteenth century suggests that the t i t l e of mudarris, regardless of specialty, predominated everywhere but the khanqahs and ribats, dedicated primarily to Sufi educational procedures and devotional observances. Also, a mudarris's salary may have appeared unstable i f considered alone (pp. 156-66), but in comparison with the erratic fees received by judges or jurisconsults, the professorial endowed chair provided a secure source of income-and served as the economic support-base for the c ulama' class.

As Professor Olson explains in his preface, this book is intended to be "an intermediate essay" - something that combines the two opposite approaches that he has found to be inadequate for most students. He identifies these two approaches as, on the one hand, specialized studies written by social scientists emphasizing theoretical concepts relating to development and underdevelopment and suitable to advanced students and, on the other hand, general textbooks on the history of the entire Middle East since before the rise of Islam. In effect, he is proposing to write a general account of contemporary Syria, particularly on the rise of the Ba'th Party and the history of the country under Ba'thist rule. Not only is he right about the need for such surveys, but he has also done quite a good job with this one. While its usefulness could have been enhanced by the availability of an inexpensive paperback edition. this book should serve the purpose of courses on twentieth c...