A review of The West and Islam: Religion and Political Thought in World History by Antony Black.
About the Author
Abdou Filali-Ansary is now retired from his positions as director and research professor at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (AKU-ISMC) in London.
Jordan gets much good press for having one of the more open and liberal regimes in the Arab world, but that reputation masks a considerably grimmer reality.
After a failed democratic experiment in 1993-96 and two military coups, Niger successfully held free and fair elections in 1999. The next couple of years will be crucial to the…