ABSTRACT
This book has covered considerable ground in seeking to understand the
nature of contemporary Muslim politics. We began by tracing the intellec-
tual and political roots of modern Islamism in the context of state forma-
tion in the Muslim world. We then examined various explanatory accounts
of Islamism before moving on to the first of several case studies. After
working through multiple examples of Islam and politics in the system, as
the system, and in the absence of a system, we moved on to analyze the
nature of today’s transnational Islamic radicalism. An examination of several other major spaces and institutions through which Muslim politics
occur today brought us, in the previous chapter, to examine the question of
who speaks for Islam in today’s globalized world. It has become clear
through our wanderings across the many terrains of Muslim politics that we
are not dealing with a monolithic phenomenon. Islam and politics com-
mingle in almost infinite variety across a vast range of settings, issues,
actors, and levels of analysis.
