Bureaucratizing Islam
Morocco and the War on Terror

This book analyzes Morocco's unique response to counter-terrorism through the development of a religious bureaucracy to define and disseminate Islam.

Ann Marie Wainscott (Author)

9781316510490, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 September 2017

282 pages, 3 b/w illus. 13 tables
23.3 x 15.7 x 1.7 cm, 0.53 kg

How have states in the Middle East and North Africa responded to the War on Terror? While much scholarship has focused on terrorism in the region, there is need for critical studies of Middle Eastern states' counter-terrorism policies. This book addresses that need by investigating Morocco's unique approach to counter-terrorism: the bureaucratization of religion. Morocco's strategy is unique in the degree to which it relies on reforms that seek to make the country's religious institutions into tools for rewarding loyalty and discouraging dissent from religious elites. Through these measures they have limited opposition through an enduring form of institutional control, accommodating some of the country's most virulent critics. This book will be of great use to researchers and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, and it will also appeal to those policymakers interested in security studies and counter-terrorism policies.

Transliteration notes
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Introduction: joining the war on terror
2. Middle Eastern states' responses to the war on terror
Part I. Reshaping Islam: 3. Moroccan Islam in the twenty-first century
4. Anatomy of a religious bureaucracy
Part II. Reshaping the State: 5. Gendered reforms in 'moderate' Morocco
6. Deploying Moroccan religious policy through public education
7. Controlling credentials in higher Islamic education
8. Exporting Moroccan Islam: a religious foreign policy
Conclusion: Morocco, the US, and the problem of terrorism
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Defence strategy, planning & research [JWK], Terrorist attack [JPWL2], Terrorism, armed struggle [JPWL], Religious institutions & organizations [HRLP], Islamic life & practice [HRHP], Islam [HRH], African history [HBJH], Regional & national history [HBJ], History [HB], Humanities [H]