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The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State
Noah Feldman
Princeton University Press
March 2008
On Sale: March 3, 2008
200 pages
ISBN: 0691120455
EAN: 9780691120454
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the
bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of
religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as
Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the
Middle East today. Now, in this penetrating book, Feldman
tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the
establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional
Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world. Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist
movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to
justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the
severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among
Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman
reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed
through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive
power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and
administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was
finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of
the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive
dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim
states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could
provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but
only if new institutions emerge that restore this
constitutional balance of power. The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping
history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble
beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could
hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.
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