Introduction

Muammar Gadhafi grabbed international headlines for sponsoring terrorism, but the brutal and bizarre Jamahiriya he created and led for 42 years drew far less attention. Absent dramatic political change in the region, scholars sought to explain authoritarian resilience and why the Middle East and North Africa had managed to withstand the ‘waves’ of democratisation that had prevailed in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and much of Africa. The popular unrest that started in Tunisia in late 2010 and spread across North Africa and the wider Middle East happened at a pace no one predicted. The Maghreb has distinct cultural, ethnic, geographic, religious and historical experiences that are worth studying. The vast majority of North Africa is Sunni Muslim, but unlike the rest of the Middle East, the dominant religious influences stem from the Maliki school of jurisprudence and the spiritual influence of Sufism, with its rituals and respect for Muslim ‘saints’.