C'est autour de la structure juridique de l'État que les relations aussi bien internationales qu'interpersonnelles sont aujourd'hui articulées, dans un contexte fortement marqué par l'hypothèse rebattue d'un « retour du religieux » dans la marche du monde. Le but de cette étude est de confronter ces deux éléments spirituel et temporel : il s'agit en effet de déterminer l'impact réel de l'islam sur le droit constitutionnel des États qui, précisément, déclarent fonder toute leur organisation sur son message sacré. Or, comme le montre bien l'examen approfondi des exemples emblématiques choisis (Arabie Saoudite, Iran et Égypte), l'État musulman est loin d'être exclusivement déterminé par le seul but spirituel qu'il affirme poursuivre. L'impact de l'islam sur son droit constitutionnel se révèle ainsi n'être finalement que relatif.

The provision of Islamic kafala has no legal correspondence with secularised political systems and structures, and, as a result, requires a proper understanding of the legislative measures that are indispensable for the protection of the weakest groups of society, at least when the latter turn out to be mostly vulnerable or abandoned. Most recent international conventions have placed much emphasis on the priority to be given to child protection rather than other personal interests. While no syntagmatic principle exists for a theoretical definition and boundary of religious freedoms and legal rules affecting Islamic kafala, it has become a prevailing interpretative canon which requires the scholar to aim for a proper understanding of the cultural identities and measures to safeguard individuals concerned. This book is a thought-provoking study of these important issues, and will serve to strengthen further research into this topic area for the benefit of both academic and professional readers.

Earthen architecture constitutes one of the most diverse forms of cultural heritage and one of the most challenging to preserve. It dates from all periods and is found on all continents but is particularly prevalent in Africa, where it has been a building tradition for centuries. Sites range from ancestral cities in Mali to the palaces of Abomey in Benin, from monuments and mosques in Iran and Buddhist temples on the Silk Road to Spanish missions in California. This volume's sixty-four papers address such themes as earthen architecture in Mali, the conservation of living sites, local knowledge systems and intangible aspects, seismic and other natural forces, the conservation and management of archaeological sites, research advances, and training.

The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s influenced many in the Islamic world to reject Western norms of liberal rationality and to return, instead, to their own tradition for political and cultural inspiration. This rejection of foreign thought threatens to end the centuries-long dialogue between Islam and the West, a dialogue that has produced a nascent Middle Eastern liberalism, along with many less desirable forms of discourse. With Islamic Liberalism, Leonard Binder hopes to reinvigorate that dialogue, asking whether political liberalism can take root in the Middle East without a vigorous Islamic liberalism. But, Binder asks, is an Islamic liberalism possible? The Islamic political community presents special problems to the development of an indigenous liberalism. That community is conceived of as divinely ordained, and its notions of the good are to be derived from scriptural revelation, not arrived at through rational discourse. Liberal politics would seem to stand little chance of surviving in such an atmosphere, let alone thriving. Binder responds to the challenge of Edward Said's critique of Orientalism, of a range of neo-Marxian development theorists, of Sayyid Qutb's fundamentalist vision, of Samir Amin's vision of Egypt's role in the Arab awakening, of Tariq al-Bishri's new populism, of Zaki Najib Mahmud's pragmatism, and the structuralism of Arkoun and Laroui. The deconstruction of these varied texts produces a number of persuasive hermeneutical conclusions that are sequentially woven together in a critical argument that refocuses our attention on the central question of political freedom and democracy. In the course of constructing this argument, Binder reopens the dialogue between Western modernity and Islamic authenticity and reveals the surprising extent to which there is a convergent interest in liberal, democratic, civil society. Finally, in a concluding chapter, he addresses the prospects for liberalism in the three major bourgeois states of Islam—Egypt, Turkey, and Iran.

Democracy posits the universality of the equality principle: a community of citizens is governed by the principle of the formal equality of all individuals, whatever their real social, cultural, or other inequalities. Democratization, on the other hand, is motivated by the ambition of ensuring the real equality of citizens, and not simply their formal equality. The dynamics of democracy are thus insured by the development of a welfare state that increasingly intervenes in order to satisfy the social and economic needs of individuals. Especially focused on France, yet informed by the experiences of other European countries, this book examines the dilemmas of the search for equality in society and politics. Democratization guarantees the rights of salaried workers and employees, the rights to material survival and housing, as well as health care, education, and culture. Today, however, as Schnapper observes, its action has become paradoxical. As the fruit of a praiseworthy concern to ensure the universality of rights, what Schnapper identifies as a "Providence State" now aims, by means of positive discrimination and other specific promotion policies, to defend the particular rights of certain categories of individuals. The action of the Providence State thus nourishes an aspiration: that the identities of historical collectivities gathered within the same national society be publicly recognized, and that these have rights. Equity thus supplants equality; and multiculturalism, universality. Such is the ordeal currently experienced by Western democracies, which are faced with the increasingly "providential" nature of their societies. Indeed, the author asks, how can a united political Europe be constructed on the ideals and institutions of citizenship, when European nations are becoming providential democracies? Providential Democracy offers a searching and timely critique of democratization that will be of interest to sociologists, political scientists, and historians. Dominique Schnapper is professor at the ?cole des Hautes ?tudes en Sciences Sociales and a member of the French Constitutional Council. Among her seventeen books are Community of Citizens: On the Modern Idea of Nationality (available from Transaction), The France of Integration, and A Europe of Immigrants. John Taylor is the author of four collections of stories and short prose and Paths to Contemporary French Literature (available from Transaction).