Inside Tunisia's al-Nahda : Between Politics and Preaching

Drawing on extensive fieldwork with grassroots activists of Tunisia's al-Nahda movement, Rory McCarthy offers a challenging new perspective on one of the Middle East's most successful Islamist projects. He explains how an Islamic movement transforms over time as it struggles to adjust to a rapidly changing political environment.

In the wake of the Arab uprisings, 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.