Please join the Institute for Middle East Studies for an in-depth discussion of Dr. Malika Zeghal’s book, The Making of the Modern Muslim State (Princeton University Press, 2024). In conversation with discussant Dr. Mona Oraby, Zeghal will share her innovative analysis that traces the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam as the preferred religion in the Middle East and North Africa.

In The Making of the Modern Muslim State, Zeghal reframes the role of Islam in modern Middle East governance. Challenging other accounts that claim that Middle Eastern states turned secular in modern times, Zeghal shows instead the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam as the preferred religion. Drawing on intellectual, political, and economic history, she traces this custodianship from early forms of constitutional governance in the nineteenth century through post–Arab Spring experiments in democracy. Zeghal argues that the intense debates around the implementation and meaning of state support for Islam led to a political cleavage between conservatives and their opponents that long predated the polarization of the twentieth century that accompanied the emergence of mass politics and Islamist movements.

Read more about the book and register for the event here.