Looks at the underlying social consequences of religious beliefs to account for the political differences between major civilizations of the world against a background of the rise of modern capitalism. This book offers an appraisal of the political and social impact of Islam.

Contents: Preface; Section I The Muslim Civilisation and Modernisation: Modernity, post-modernity and the Muslim world; Islam and post-modernity; The Weber thesis. Section II Islam as a World Religion: Mohammed - a political prophet; Islam: faith and rationality. Section III The Muslim Legacy: Traditional domination; Islamic law and Arab legal institutions; Capitalism in Muslim countries. Section IV Paths of Muslim Modernisation: The modernisation of Arabia; Separation between state and religion?; Towards a new fundamentalism. Section V The Problems of Muslim Civilisation Modernisation: Islam and democracy; Islam and politics: where the principal difficulty of post-modernity lies. Section IV State and Religion in Maghreb: Religion and human rights: constants and constraints; Islamic politics and the military: Algeria 1962-2008 Riadh Sidaoui. Epilogue: Islam - a religion of warriors?; Fundamentalism and the state: need for mutual explanation; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.