As recently as 15 years ago, no serious stu- dent of social and political change in the Middle East, North Africa, or South and South- east Asia paid much attention to Islam. It was obviously the religion professed by the over- whelming majority of the population~ in many nations of these regions, and no doubt it had once provided the framework of ideas and sen- timents through which Muslims interpreted their own actions and institutions. But that was history. As an ideology in the modern world,...