The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State

When empires fall, they tend to fall for good, and the same could well be true of systems of government. However, it seems that “democracy” and “the Islamic state” are the only two prominent examples of governing systems that have re-emerged after they have ‘apparently ceased to exist.’ (p. 1) This “rebirth” of the Islamic state after its fall in 1924 CE, both in ‘symbolic and practical terms’ (p. 2), is the ‘story of fall and rise’. (p. 5) This story is discussed and analyzed, historically, in the book under review, from the Prophetic to the Ottoman periods, and from the final decades of the twentieth century to the recent so-called “Arab Spring”. Building on the success of its 2008 edition, this reissue offers additional material on current trends in Islamic political thought in general, and on the ‘Arab Spring’ and the changes it has brought in the entire Middle East, in particular. The main thesis of the book is the ‘fall of the Islamic state and its unlikely rebirth’ (p. 4), discussed in three main parts (Parts I-III), preceded by a new Introduction (pp. xi-xl) along with the introduction to the first edition (pp. 1–15), and followed by a succinct conclusion.