Inside Tunisia's al-Nahda: Between Politics and Preaching
(Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Chosen as one of the Foreign Affairs best books of 2019.
In the wake of the Arab uprisings, the Tunisian Islamist movement al-Nahda voted to transform itself into a political party that would for the first time withdraw from a preaching project built around religious, social, and cultural activism. This turn to the political was not a Tunisian exception but reflects an urgent debate within Islamist movements as they struggle to adjust to a rapidly changing political environment.
This book re-orientates how we think about Islamist movements. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with grassroots activists of Tunisia's al-Nahda, Rory McCarthy focuses on the lived experience of activism to offer a challenging new perspective on one of the Middle East's most successful Islamist projects. Original evidence explains how al-Nahda survived two decades of brutal repression in prison and in social exclusion, and reveals what price the movement paid for a new strategy of pragmatism and reform during the Tunisian transition away from authoritarianism.
Reviews
Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (March 2019)
Choice Reviews (April 2019)
Foreign Affairs (May/June 2019)
The Journal of North African Studies (January 2020)
Perspectives on Politics (December 2020)
From the back cover
‘Inside Tunisia’s al-Nahda is an important contribution to our understanding of Tunisian politics and of contemporary Islamist movements. By looking closely at the experience of Tunisian Islamists in a single city over several decades, Rory McCarthy extracts critical new insights into how Islamist movements organize, recruit, and formulate political strategies … This will be a must-read for anyone engaging with questions about political Islam in a changing Middle East.’
Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science, George Washington University
‘[This book] draws on hundreds of hours of formal and informal discussions with current and former members of the al-Nahda movement.’
François Burgat, Emeritus Director of Research, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence
‘A fascinating and incisive analysis of al-Nahda’s evolution … McCarthy sheds new light on the sources of al-Nahda’s resilience during the long years of repression under Bourguiba and Ben Ali, as well as its comeback in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution … A major contribution to “next-wave” scholarship on Islamist movements.’
Carrie Wickham, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Emory University