One of the most important developments in Muslim politics in recent yearshas been the spread of movements calling for the implementation of sharia orIslamic law. Shari a Politics maps the ideals and organization of thesemovements and examines their implications for the future of democracy, citizenrights, and gender relations in the Muslim world. These studies of eightMuslim-majority societies, and state-of-the-field reflections by leading experts, provide the first comparative investigation of movements for and againstimplementation of sharia. These essays reveal that the Muslim public's interestin sharia does not spring from an unchanging devotion to received religioustradition, but from an effort to respond to the central political and ethicalquestions of the day.