Illuminating, beautifully written, a book that helps us understand the relationship between the Islamic world and modernity. The Islamic Enlightenment has long since taken place. In a stunning narrative, Christopher de Bellaigue dismantles the often complacent Western view of the Arab world. Even in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, there was a broad movement for freedom, equality, and democracy after 1800, advocating for a secular state, women's rights, trade unions, a free press, and the abolition of slavery. Arab societies modernized at breathtaking speed. However, the counter-enlightenment quickly followed, with autocratic regimes and fundamentalist terror. De Bellaigue depicts the struggle between faith and reason and the quest for a new Muslim identity.