MILLENNIUM AND CHARISMA AMONG PATHANS: A Critical Essay in Social Anthropology

Ahmed, Akbar S.

ISBN 10: 0710083483 / ISBN 13: 9780710083487

Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1976

About this Item

blue hardback, 1st ed. (1976), 173 pages in Good (short tears to top front) Dust Jacket, SIGNED. Bumped corners, book review laid in, text unmarked. Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, (born. 15 January 1943) is an American-Pakistani academic, author, poet, playwright, filmmaker and former diplomat. He currently holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and is Professor of International Relations at the American University in Washington, D.C. A former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland, Ahmed was a member of the Civil Service of Pakistan and served as Political Agent in South Waziristan Agency and Commissioner in Baluchistan. He also served as the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) at the University of Cambridge as well as holding teaching positions at Harvard, Princeton, and the U.S. Naval Academy. An anthropologist and scholar of Islam, he received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has been called "the world's leading authority on contemporary Islam" by the BBC.

Seller Inventory # CE234726

Bibliographic Details

• Title: MILLENNIUM AND CHARISMA AMONG PATHANS: A Critical Essay in Social Anthropology
• Publisher: Routledge & Kegan Paul, London
• Publication Date: 1976
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0710083483
• ISBN 13: 9780710083487
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st edition.
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Psychology & Psychiatry
  • Social Science

About this title

Synopsis

First published in 1976, this Routledge Revivals reissue presents an analysis of the Swat Pathans, the people of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, who belong administratively to Pakistan despite being a fiercely independent group, with their own codes and ways of life. Akbar S. Ahmed, who knows the Swat Pathans well through his family connections, presents a clear and sophisticated analysis of their complex society. The study provides an anthropological and critical re-examination of the ethnography of the Swat Pathans and the author suggests specific alternative models of social organization.

The book also represents an important contribution to the general debate in the social sciences between the 'methodological individualists' and the 'methodological holists', and challenges some of the theoretical and methodological premises in anthropology. In particular the author is critical of Professor Fredrik Barth's study of Swat Pathans, for he believes that the 'Swat models' have inadvertently become the basis for generalized, and often incorrect, understanding of models of Pathan socio-political organization in the social sciences.

Review

‘This book is important, and gives rewarding insight into a dynamic political structure in Islamic tribal society.’ – Andre Singer, The Times Literary Supplement

‘Mr Ahmed's strengths are his first hand experience of this subject, his knowledge of Islam and his intimacy with the languages concerned. To these he adds an excellent understanding of theoretical issues in contemporary social anthropology. The book is important for all social anthropologists, for students of South Asian societies, Islamic scholars and political scientists.’ – D.F. Pocock, British Book News