Understanding Political Islam retraces the human and intellectual development that led Francois Burgat to a very firm conviction: that the roots of the tensions that afflict the Western world's relationship with the Muslim world are political rather than ideological. In his compelling account of the interactions between personal life-history and professional research trajectories, Burgat examines how the rise of political Islam has been expressed: first in the Arab world, then in its interactions with European and Western societies. An essential continuation of his work on Islamism, Burgat's unique field research and 'political trespassing' marks an overdue challenge to the academic mainstream. -- .

The portrayal of Islamic movements as a tide of religious fanaticism threatening the West, and major participants in the coming "clash of civilizations", has provoked a multifaceted debate of great significance to the future of international relations. This text argues that political Islam's desire to restore a culture distorted by colonization does not necessarily compromise its progress to more democracy and greater tolerance. From Rabat to Gaza, through Algiers and Cairo, the author carried out his enquiry through interviews with prominent Islamists, and he allows them to speak for themselves in the book. Among the issues addressed are the relationship between Islam and modernity, Islamism and women, and questions of violence.

A renowned authority on Islamic movements, Francois Burgat lived for eighteen years in the Arab world, including his time as director of the French Center for Archaeology and Social Sciences at Yemen. He also dedicated many months to fieldwork in North Africa. Bringing Burgat's decades of expertise to the complex dialogues that have marked the post-9/11 world, Islamism in the Shadow of al-Qaeda delivers much-needed clarity and historical perspective. In Burgat's eyes, most of the West's political and media rhetoric has only fueled al-Qaeda's case, revealing a woeful lack of comprehension regarding the violent authoritarianism that divides the Middle East and creates a breeding ground for terrorism. Islamism in the Shadow of al-Qaeda provides a primer of the three eras of political Islam, from the 1928 founding of the Muslim Brothers to the rise of post-colonial dictatorships and the current radicalization of "Generation al-Qaeda." Offering a new roadmap for stability, Burgat bridges the ideologies-political, religious, and cultural-that must be traversed if the deadly sectarianism is to be superseded.