Based on intimate knowledge of the militants, Lacroix's pioneering analysis of the history and politics of Saudi Islamists is, and will remain, a classic. -- Gilles Kepel, author of Jihad and Beyond Terror and Martyrdom Awakening Islam is the benchmark against which books on the vital intersection between religion and politics in Saudi Arabia will now be measured. It sheds light not only on Saudi Arabia, but on the fluid undercurrents of religious politics in many neighboring countries. -- Dale F. Eickelman, Dartmouth College An extraordinary contribution that reshapes our understanding of Saudi Arabia and of Islamic politics in the Middle East. Lacroix takes us deep inside the evolution of the Sahwa and its competitors in Saudi Arabia, with unprecedented access to participants and a close reading of a vast array of rare sources. -- Marc Lynch, Director, Institute for Middle East Studies, George Washington University The Sahwa movement played a crucial role in shaping politically-oriented religious discourse in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Yet the movement is little understood and its ideas much misinterpreted. Lacroix's dispassionate, far-reaching and well-informed analysis provides an essential resource for the understanding of this critical phenomenon. -- Tim Niblock, University of Exeter
Stéphane Lacroix is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Sciences Po, Paris.
Based on intimate knowledge of the militants, Lacroix's pioneering
analysis of the history and politics of Saudi Islamists is, and
will remain, a classic.
*Gilles Kepel, author of Jihad and Beyond Terror and
Martyrdom*
Awakening Islam is the benchmark against which books on the vital
intersection between religion and politics in Saudi Arabia will now
be measured. It sheds light not only on Saudi Arabia, but on the
fluid undercurrents of religious politics in many neighboring
countries.
*Dale F. Eickelman, Dartmouth College*
An extraordinary contribution that reshapes our understanding of
Saudi Arabia and of Islamic politics in the Middle East. Lacroix
takes us deep inside the evolution of the Sahwa and its competitors
in Saudi Arabia, with unprecedented access to participants and a
close reading of a vast array of rare sources.
*Marc Lynch, Director, Institute for Middle East Studies, George
Washington University*
The Sahwa movement played a crucial role in shaping
politically-oriented religious discourse in Saudi Arabia and
beyond. Yet the movement is little understood and its ideas much
misinterpreted. Lacroix's dispassionate, far-reaching and
well-informed analysis provides an essential resource for the
understanding of this critical phenomenon.
*Tim Niblock, University of Exeter*
Al-Sahwa Al-Islamiyya or "Islamic Awakening" was one of the most
powerful social movements in the history of Saudi Arabia. It is
also one of the least documented--until now. Stéphane Lacroix tells
the story of this movement in his splendid new book...Lacroix's
study is timely and original. Serious students of Saudi Arabia need
to read this important book. They will be enlightened by it and
moved to seek more knowledge about the Kingdom.
*Saudi Gazette*
A timely work, especially when read against the backdrop of
antigovernment demonstrations taking place across the Middle East
and North Africa today.
*Booklist*
Awakening Islam is a product of serious scholarly interpretive and
linguistic skills.
*Times Higher Education*
Looking at the Muslim misfits of the past half-century and how many
received refuge in Saudi Arabia, Parisian professor Stéphane
Lacroix argues that the resulting movement has yielded two opposing
camps--the Islamo-liberals and the neo-jihadis, both headquartered
out of that Islamic heartland.
*Publishers Weekly*
Little attention is paid to Saudi Arabia's internal Islamist
movements. During the decades before the 1990s, the kingdom
actively fostered the Sahwa, or "Islamic awakening," a movement led
by local activists that was as political as it was religious. In
his meticulously researched book, Stéphane Lacroix provides an
exhaustive history of the Sahwa, detailing the movement's original
constituents--Muslim émigrés fleeing persecution from other states
in the region--and its importance to the Saudi social and political
spheres. For decades, Saudi leaders supported the group's
activities, even though their ideas were not entirely in line with
state-sanctioned Wahhabism. This ended when Saddam Hussein invaded
the country in 1990. The Saudis' reliance on American military
assistance expedited the Sahwa's radicalization and ultimately led
to its downfall. Among the splinters that remained were a group of
neo-Jihadis who turned against the kingdom's rulers and stood
behind Osama bin Laden's philosophy of holy war. Lacroix's
authoritative history sheds light on how this homegrown movement
became influential throughout the region and created some blowback
of its own.
*The Daily*
Awakening Islam is bound to be the definitive account of how the
Muslim Brotherhood took root in the kingdom and reshaped its
religious landscape.
*Christian Century*
Awakening Islam is an astonishingly rich, detailed analysis of the
fascinating world of Saudi Islamism. The young French scholar
Stephane LaCroix spent significant time in Saudi Arabia, and got
deep inside the competing networks that have shaped Saudi Arabia's
distinctive Islamist milieu. He unpacks the role of Muslim Brothers
and Salafis and their sometimes-uneasy relationship with the state.
He carefully traces the evolution of the Sahwa (Awakening)
networks, and how they both carried political dissent and
restructured the pathways of political mobilization. And while he
certainly pays attention to militant jihadism and the worldview
which helped spawn al-Qaeda, that does not overwhelm his broader
analytical mission. This book is simply an extraordinary
accomplishment, and should be required reading for anyone
interested in the politics of Islam.
*Foreign Policy*
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