Young Islam, The New Politics of Religion in the Arab World

The author, a Fulbright scholar of American nationality and Jewish background, teaching Arabic Philosophy and Late Antique History at Munich University in Germany, is well known for his book The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. His first book, Young Islam: The New Politics of Religion in Morocco and the Arab World first appeared at Princeton, also in 2015. The author’s active involvement with Morocco, lasting four years, and his training in political sociology, materialised during his stay there as a Peace Corps volunteer, doing extensive ethnographic fieldwork which allowed him to associate with Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine and the two main Islamist movements in that country: Al-[Adl wa’l-Ihsan and the Party of Justice and Development (PJD), both typical of what the author labels ‘Islamist pluralism’ (p. 8). Still famous is Yassine’s 114-pages open letter to the King of Morocco (1974) alleging that he had become an unworthy authority and corrupt sell-out to the West and Israel (p. 42). In response, the authorities committed Yassine to an asylum for the insane which, however, only increased his standing and fame!