This innovative book analyzes the relationship between religion and politics in the Middle East through a comparative study of five countriesEgypt, Israel, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Robert D. Lee examines each country in terms of four domains in which state and religion necessarily interact national identity, ideology, institutions, and political culture. In each domain he considers contradictory hypotheses, some of them asserting that religion is a positive force for political development and others identifying it as an obstacle. Among the questions the book confronts Is secularization a necessary prerequisite for democratic development How is it and why is it that religion and politics are so deeply entangled in these five countries And, why is it that all five countries differ so markedly in the way they identify themselves and use religion for political purposes The book argues that the nature of religious organization and practice in the Middle East must be understood in the