Fire and Faith

Fire and Faith is the third volume in Islam and the West, a three-volume series by scholar A. S. Ibrahim examining the rise and reach of political Islam in the modern world. This volume turns to the Middle East, analyzing the region’s own struggles over faith, power, and governance-and the choices they present for American foreign policy.Drawing on primary sources, classical Islamic texts, and contemporary events, Ibrahim distinguishes political Islam as an ideology from Islam as a faith, and traces how that ideology shapes conflict and statecraft across the region-through the contest between rival visions of Islamic governance, the fate of religious minorities, and the upheavals reshaping Iran, Syria, and the wider Middle East. The book approaches a charged subject with historical context, careful argument, and scholarly restraint rather than polemic.Collected from Ibrahim’s essays and paired with new retrospective commentary, the volume offers general readers, students, faculty, and policymakers a documented and accessible account of a region central to the defining questions of our time.A. S. Ibrahim holds PhDs from Fuller Theological Seminary and the University of Haifa and is professor of Islamic studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of more than fifteen books.