ARMANDO SALVATORE is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, Humboldt University, Germany. He is author of Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity (Ithaca Press, 1997) and editor of Between Europe and Islam: Shaping Modernity in a Transcultural Space (co-edited with Almut Höfert, Peter Lang, 2000).MARK LE VINE is Associate Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and Islamic Studies at the University of California, USA. He is the author of Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine (UC Press, NYP), Why They Don't Hate Us: From Culture Wars to Culture Jamming in the Global Era (Oneworld PressNYP), and co-editor with Viggo Mortensen and Pilar Perez of Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation (Perceval Press).

"Fresh and insightful, this provocative and original collection of essays explores ideas of the public, public reason, and civic virtue as they are being reshaped through increasingly open debate and practice in law, the media, religious expression, and women's movements in Muslim majority societies. In scope and approach, this volume is good to think with." - Dale F. Eickelman, coauthor, with James Piscatori, of Muslim Politics (new edition, 2004). "This edited collection of essays is highly informative and often insightful in its assessment of the applicability of the concept of "the public sphere" to a variety of contexts in the Middle East. Most interesting and thought-provoking are the joint pieces by the editors Mark Levine and Armando Salvatore in which they draw on little-known writings by Gramsci and Foucault to re-examine the religious movements in the contemporary Muslim world. A very valuable contribution to understanding developments in that region." - Talal Asad, Graduate Center, City University of New York

• PART ONE: CONTESTED HEGEMONIES IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE Socio-Religious Movements and the Transformation of 'Common Sense' Into a Politics of 'Common Good'; S.LeVine Power, Religion, and the Effects of Publicness in Twentieth Century Shiraz; S.Manoukian 'Doing Good, Like Sayyida Zaynab': Lebanese Shi-i Women's Participation in the Public Sphere; L.Deeb 'Building the World' in a Global Age; R.Baker PART TWO: PRACTICE, COMMUNICATION AND THE PUBLIC CONSTRUCTION OF LEGAL ARGUMENT Constructing the Private/Public Distinction in Muslim-Majority Societies: A Praxiological Approach; B.Dupret & J.Ferrié Communicative Action and the Social Construction of Shari'a in Contemporary Pakistan; M.K.Masud Is There An Arab Public Sphere? The Palestinian Intifada, a Saudi Fatwa, and the Egyptian Press; D.Hamzah Cover Stories: A Genealogy of the Legal-Public Sphere in Yemen; B.Messick Public Spheres Transnationalized: Comparisons Within and Beyond Muslim Majority Societies; C.Lynch