Piscatori tries to prove — contrary to theory, historical record, current circumstances, and common sense — that "in Islam, the nation-state is no less possible, or no more fraught with problems, than it is in the non-Muslim world." Going even further, he declares that a consensus has emerged among Muslims "which says that the nation-state is, or can be, an Islamic institution." He calls this view "conformist thinking"; and he banishes those powerful forces that disagree with this so-called consensus by calling them the "nonconformists" — a neat, if ineffectual verbal trick.
I do not know whether Piscatori is a Muslim. If he is, then this is one more apologetic effort to prove that Islam is compatible with modem life. As such, it fits into a long tradition; only most of them are not purveyed as works of scholarship and published by Cambridge University Press. If Piscatori is not a Muslim, then this is a learned curiosity — a Western scholar who devotes years to prove to Muslims that one of modern life's central dilemmas for them is really no problem at all.
