Table of Contents

Introduction Part One The Heritage 1. Setting the Stage: Islam and the Muslims 2. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in Comparative Perspective: An Overview 3. Muslim "Church Government" 4. The Historical Bases of Traditional Muslim and Christian Political Theory 5. Unity and Community 6. The Roots of Political Pessimism 7. Muslim Attitudes Toward the State: An Impressionistic Sketch Part Two Convulsions of Modern Times 8. Islam and Politics in Modern Times: The Great Transformation 9. Meeting the Western Challenge: The Early Establishment Response 10. The Early Antiestablishment Response to the Western Challenge 11. From World War I to the 1960s: The Years of Muted Islamist Politics 12. The Return of Islam? 13. The Radical Muslim Discourse 14. Al-Banna, Mawdudi, and Qutb 15. Khomeini and Shi'ite Islamism Conclusion Notes Islam and Politics Past and Present: A Bibliographical Essay Works Cited Index

Promotional Information

Are today's radical Islamic groups restoring Islam to an earlier model of religiously inspired politics, as they claim, or are they introducing striking innovations? A leading scholar of the Muslim world investigates these issues in the context of the broad reaches of Muslim history.

About the Author

L. Carl Brown, Garrett Professor in Foreign Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University, is editor of Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East.

Reviews

A balanced, scholarly assessment of Islamic politics... A subtle and skilled rejoinder to the conventional schools of thought-and to fashionable assumptions about the 'post-Islamist' era. Foreign Affairs Brown... is one of the giants of Middle Eastern studies and his books get better and better... A well-written and lucid study. Middle East Quarterly Both an important and a useful book. It is important for the light it sheds on the politics and also on the societies of the Islamic world by daring to make an unfashionable but highly productive comparison between Islam and Christendom... It addresses very precisely the questions in the minds of many upper-level undergraduates taking courses in Islamic political thought. It should, however, be read by everyone interested in politics in the Islamic world or in international relations. Islamic Studies Religion and State destabilizes entrenched conventional thinking about Islam and politics. This alone makes the book worth reading. The Journal of Religion The image of Islam as an inherently aggressive and xenophobic religion has long prevailed in the West and can at times appear to be substantiated by current events. This book challenges this conventional wisdom with a fascinating, historical overview of the relationship between religious and political life in the Muslim world, from Islam's early centuries to the present day. The Middle East Paves the way for grasping the Islamist phenomenon in its diverse forms in the contemporary Muslim world. History of Religions This timely book on Islam and politics... paves the way for grasping the Islamist phenomenon in its diverse forms in the contemporary Muslim world... Brown has offered us the necessary epistemological tools to come to grips with the complex theme of Islam and politics both in the classical and modern phases of the Muslim world. -- Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi Muslim World Journal