Join the LSE Middle East Centre, the Department of Economic History, LSE, and LSE's Programme on Cohesive Capitalism for the launch of Dr Malika Zeghal's latest book The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa published by Princeton University Press.

In The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton University Press, 2024), Malika Zeghal reframes the role of Islam in modern Middle East governance. Challenging other accounts that claim that Middle Eastern states turned secular in modern times, Zeghal shows instead the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam as the preferred religion, accompanied by vigorous debates as to how it should be implemented. Drawing on intellectual, political, and economic history, she traces this custodianship and attendant debates from early forms of constitutional governance in the nineteenth century through post–Arab Spring experiments in democracy. Her detailed and groundbreaking analysis, which spans Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon, makes clear the deep historical roots of current political divisions over Islam in governance.

Malika Zeghal is the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. She is the author of Gardiens de l’Islam, Les Oulémas d’al-Azhar dans l’Egypte Contemporaine and Islamism in Morocco: Religion, Authoritarianism, and Electoral Politics. Her latest book is The Making of the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton University Press, 2024).

Meet our discussant and chair 

Steffen Hertog is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a comparative political economist with particular focus on the Middle East and the author of “Princes, Brokers and Bureaucrats: Oil and State in Saudi Arabia” (Cornell University Press 2011) and, with Diego Gambetta, of “Engineers of Jihad: the Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education” (Princeton University Press 2016), and of "Locked Out of Development: Insiders and Outsiders in Arab Capitalism" (Cambridge University Press 2022).

Mohamed Saleh is a Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is also a Research Affiliate in Economic History at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a Faculty Fellow at the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS), and a Research Fellow at the Economic Research Forum (ERF). He published widely in leading economics, economic history, and political science journals.