Nader Hashemi & Danny Postel, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East

"Without taking anything away from interesting insights of the collective effort and the results presented in the book, several weaknesses are worth bringing up. For example, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East on the whole fails to present a sufficiently clear and coherent longitudinal explanation of the evolution of sectarianization in relation to modernity and the development of nation-states in the region. There are intimations of such a discussion, primarily in the introduction, but these are largely left unexplored in the subsequent chapters."

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Thomas Pierret, Religion and State in Syria: The Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution

“Pierret provides a rich, detailed, thick description of the religious field of Syria from the 1960’s to the present, covering the years from the Baʿth coup to the ongoing Syrian Civil War. In describing the structure of Syria’s religious field, Pierret draws on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu and other sociologists to consider Syria’s Sunni ʿulamaʾ, their institutions, financial basis, opponents, and strategies in engaging the realm of power […] Pierret’s study is an important contribution to the literature on ʿulamaʾ in the 20th century, the state, Islamism, and the nature of contestation and accommodation between these actors.”

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