Book Review: Joana Cook and Shiraz Maher: The Rule is for None but Allah. Islamist Approaches to Governance

The contributors to this comprehensive edited volume seek to provide a broad examination of Islamist governance in all its varieties. It consists, next to an erudite introduction by Shiraz Maher and Joana Cook, of 16 historical and contemporary case studies, many by experts on particular Islamist movements (like Aaron Zelin on Tunisia’s al-Nahdah or Matthew Lewitt on Hezbollah in Lebanon). In addition to Western scholars like Christopher Anzalone, Julie Coleman, Méryl Demuynck, Martyn Frampton, Ashley Jackson, Nina Musgrave, Alexandra Phelan, Cameron Sumpter and Inga K. Trauthig, the volume also includes contributions from non-Western researchers such as Emadeddin Badi, Nadwa Al-Dawsari, Dareen Khalifa, Ayse Lokmanoglu, Tehmina Aslam Ranjha, Abdullah K. Al-Saud and Yuslikha Kusuma Wardhani. The book is divided into four parts: I. Constitutional Approaches (chapters 1-3), II. Legitimising Governance (chapters 4-9), III. Social Welfare Activism (chapters 10-13), and IV. Relations between States and Islamist Actors (chapters 14-16).