This study is a welcome addition both to the limited scholarship on Islam in Syria and to research on religious scholars (bearers of religious knowledge, ḥamalat al-ʿilm) in Muslim societies in general. This revision of the author's doctoral work is a richly documented overview of the place of religious scholars in Syria (with a focus on Damascus and Aleppo) through the 20th century until the present. In the wake of the French Mandate, a group of key figures, known as “Founding Shaykhs” (Kaftaru, Habbanaka, Farfur, Buti, Rifaʿi, Nabhan, etc.), replaced older scholarly lineages from the Ottoman period. Through urban-based networks of disciples, dynamic circles of religious education, and patronage of merchants and rulers, they forged a notable standing in society. The author distinguishes them—effectively a religious establishment (mashyakha)—from Islamists through their interest in “the management of the goods of salvation” (p. 243) in contrast to the Islamists’ focus on governing structures.

Precisely because of this limited “sector” interest (i.e., their role as overseers of the goods of salvation), the mashyakha had a freer hand to nurture piety and foster loyalty to Islam as a counterpoint to secularist authoritarianism. Helped by the fact that the state in Syria (unlike other contexts) did not nationalize all religious activity under its direct control, the mashyakha offered a recognizably alternative voice in society that the state itself came to acknowledge. In short, they “won,” not by defeating the state but by successfully “reconquering” public space for Islam in Syria through “activist” efforts to educate (tarbiya) the souls of believers through networks of educational institutions parallel to those of the state.

Significantly, the author, while remaining within the social sciences, comes close to treating the topic through the self-understanding of the personalities in question. He avoids the tendency to reduce the role of Islam's scholars to mobilization or the simple drive for prestige in society. As the author recognizes, questions of mobilization and prestige certainly can and do characterize the mashyakha in Syria (and elsewhere). However, by focusing on them, it is easy to overlook the simple fact that the mashyakha as a whole constitutes a sector in society with a distinct interest in representing the tradition of Islam and cultivating its values and disciplines (again, the goods of salvation) irrespective of the governing structures of the day.

This approach better helps us to see how and why the mashyakha, in contrast to the Islamists, recognized and even supported authoritarian rule while, at the same time, lobbying it to support the institutions and moral positions of Islam. A byproduct of this exchange of interests has been the Baʿthist state's willingness to patronize the spread of Islam in society while keeping a lid on democratic aspirations, all with the blessings of the nation's leading religious authorities. In short, the author describes a remarkable process that brought about the reversal of the state's earlier heavy-handed secularizing policies. To be sure, the success of the mashyakha depended on figures with social skills and moral qualities, but the author gives primary credit to the nature of the sector they occupy and the way in which it shapes and limits the goals of the mashyakha in society. This study thus escapes the pitfall of assuming that religion exists in authoritarian contexts only in two ways: cooptation or confrontation. With a sector focus on the goods of salvation apart from the political situation, the mashyakha are able to coexist with authoritarianism but also act as revivers of society's religious character.

Pierret's book thus poses a challenge to lingering scholarly assumptions about the “quietism” of traditional figures in Muslim society. The keepers of tradition can also be agents of revivalism. Indeed, as the author maintains, the mashyakha did not take a reactionary stance toward the forces of modernization. They were rather pioneers in a religious renaissance that worked not only to train the next generation of scholarly elites, but also to empower lay people to take responsibility for Islam. The failure of Islamism and Salafism in Syria cannot therefore be wholly attributed to state suppression, but no less so to the ability of the mashyakha to prove attractive and relevant to present-day believers.

This study raises important questions that the Arab Uprisings only cloud. The relation of the mashyakha to the state has been a cautious partnership at best. They retained prominence as society's guides and moral tutors by investing in the power of religious knowledge in Islam. This stance, the author argues, arises not simply from caution in the face of authoritarianism, but from the very nature of the sector they occupy. Their authority only has integrity because of their sector interest, but they cannot live in isolation from the merchants and rulers upon whose patronage they rely. This complex relation with society at large and sources of patronage in particular require members of the mashyakha to walk a fine line, and the author notes several examples of figures within the mashyakha whose reputation was damaged as a result of either too close a relation to the state or too strong a clash with it.

However, questions remain. Would this group have been as successful in a nonauthoritarian context? Studies on Latin America suggest that traditional churches do well in authoritarian contexts and less well when they are forced to compete with other religious movements that the authoritarian state formerly limited. The willingness of the mashyakha to accommodate itself to authoritarian rule, while consistent with its sector interests, has arguably helped make sense of such rule to their constituencies in Syrian society—and even to perpetuate it. The voices of the mashyakha may have “saved” Islam for Syria, but they also linked it to authoritarianism. The future of Syria—and indeed of the entire region—is not clear. What does the future look like for the mashyakha? Will they be able to flourish as they have in the past in the event they no longer enjoy the backing of authoritarian rule? Are the interests of their sector best preserved in partnership with authoritarian rule, even of the secularist kind? Time will tell how the mashyakha in Syria fares when the state no longer needs it to compensate for its lack of legitimacy. This study, essential reading for all with interest in the nature of religion in modern Muslim societies, has laid out important methodological terrain for future research on Islam in Syria.