On Tuesday\, February 11\, 2025\, at 12:30 -1:30PM US EST via Zoom\, Professor Malika Zeghal will present The Making o f the Modern Muslim State: Islam and Governance in the Middle East and Nort h Africa (Princeton University Press\, 2024). This book reframes the role o f Islam in modern Middle East governance. Challenging other accounts that c laim that Middle Eastern states turned secular in modern times\, Professor Zeghal shows instead the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam a s the preferred religion. Drawing on intellectual\, political\, and economi c history\, she traces this custodianship from early forms of constitutiona l governance in the nineteenth century through post–Arab Spring experiments in democracy. She argues that the intense debates around the implementatio n and meaning of state support for Islam led to a political cleavage betwee n conservatives and their opponents that long predated the polarization of the twentieth century that accompanied the emergence of mass politics and I slamist movements. Examining constitutional projects\, public spending\, sc hool enrollments\, and curricula\, Professor Zeghal shows that although mod ern Muslim-majority polities have imported Western techniques of governance \, the state has continued to protect and support the religion\, community\ , and institutions of Islam. She finds that even as Middle Eastern states h ave expanded their nonreligious undertakings\, they have dramatically incre ased their per capita supply of public religious provisions\, especially Is lamic education—further feeding the political schism between Islamists and their adversaries.