The Middle East The Politics of the Sacred and Secular

This book provides an essential historical and theoretical context to the meaning of politics in the Middle East. Shahrough Akhavi shows that the way people think about politics in the Middle East has developed in response to historical experience. Islam has obviously played a pivotal role and the book does much to disentangle myth and reality about Islamic responses to politics. Refreshingly, however, the book focuses on the universal concepts of the individual, civil society, the state, justice, authority and obligation and how these have been interpreted by Middle Eastern thinkers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Middle Eastbuilds a dynamic picture of a politically exciting and engaged region.

Shahrough Akhavi is Professor of Political Science at the University of South.

Acknowledgements * Introduction * The Sacred and the Secular * History and Social Change * The Individual * Society * The State * Conclusions