"Some of the most pressing questions in the Middle East and North Africa today revolve around the proper place of Islamic institutions and authorities in governance and political affairs. Drawing on data from 42 surveys carried out in fifteen countries between 1988 and 2011, representing the opinions of more than 60,000 men and women, this study investigates the reasons that some individuals support a central role for Islam in government while others...

"The Call chronicles the House of Saud's vast project to systematically transform the Muslim world in its own image by spreading abroad Wahhabism, its brand of ultraconservative Islam. Using billions of dollars, thousands of personnel, and institutions both governmental and unofficial, "Saudi money" is both more complex and more influential than is commonly believed. Journalist Krithika Varagur traverses three continents to tell the story of the Saudi...

In Heaven on Earth, Sadakat Kadri brings lucid wit and analytical skill to the thrilling and turbulent story of Islam's foundation and expansion. He shows how legal ideas gradually evolved out of thousands of reports about the Prophet Mohammad, most of which were not even written down until two centuries after his death. And he explains how, just in the last forty years, the shari'a has been appropriated and transformed by hardliners desperate to...

"2014 has the potential to go down as a crucial year in modern world history. A resurgent and bellicose Russia took over Crimea and fueled a civil war in Eastern Ukraine. Post-Saddam Iraq, in many respects a creature of the United States because of the war that began in 2003, lost a third of its territory to an army of hyper-violent millennialists. The peace process in Israel seemed to completely collapse. Finally, after coalescing in Syria as a territorial...

A correspondent who covers Afghanistan and Pakistan brings the shadowy world of the Taliban, the extreme Islamic organization, into sharp focus. Covers its rise to power, its impact on Afghanistan and the region, its role in oil and gas company decisions, the effects of changing American attitudes, and the new face of Islamic fundamentalism.