The Calligraphic State

In this innovative combination of anthropology, history, and postmodern theory, Brinkley Messick examines the changing relation of writing and authority in a Muslim society from the late nineteenth century to the present. The creation and interpretation of texts, from sacred scriptures to administrative and legal contracts, are among the fundamental ways that authority is established and maintained in a complex state. Yet few scholars have explored this process and the ways in which it changes, especially outside the Western world.

Messick brings together intensive ethnography and textual analysis from a wealth of material: Islamic jurisprudence, Yemeni histories, local documents. In exploring the structure and transformation of literacy, law, and statecraft in Yemen, he raises important issues that are of comparative significance for understanding political life in other Muslim and nonwestern states as well.

Brinkley Messick is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.

ILLUSTRATIONS 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
INTRODUCTION

PART I· AUTHORITY 
Chapter 1. Genealogies of the Text 
Chapter 2. The Pen and the Sword 
Chapter 3. Disenchantment 

PART II· TRANSMISSION 
Chapter 4. Audition 
Chapter 5. The New Method 
Chapter 6. Print Culture 

PART III· INTERPRETATION 
Chapter 7. Relations of Interpretation 
Chapter 8. Shari'a Society 
Chapter 9. Judicial Presence 
Chapter I0. Court Order 

PART IV· INSCRIPTION 
Chapter 11. Evidence of the Word 
Chapter 12. Spiral Texts 

CONCLUSION 
BIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE 
GLOSSARY 
NOTES 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
INDEX