Publisher's Synopsis
Tensions and Transitions in the Muslim World provides an alternative reading of Middle Eastern politics and political culture by focusing on the dynamics of change, and examining the role of Islam in the emerging modern Middle East. Louay Safi contends that by focusing on radical and traditionalist Islam, Middle East specialists often overlook the liberal manifestations of Islam, which, though marginalized, constitute the driving force in the sociopolitical development of the Middle East. To capture the dynamics of progress in the Middle East, Safi examines the impact of the ideological struggle and intellectual debate between the forces of modernism and Islamic traditionalism on the transformation of mainstream society, and delineates the emerging sociopolitical outlooks and orientations, locked in a fierce struggle for the heart and soul of the Middle East.
