Algeria is beset with endemic violence: extra-judicial killings and torture by a state claiming to be legitimate, and terrorist acts by groups calling themselves "Islamic". In recent years an average of about 500 people have been killed each week, and countless more maimed and traumatized. Combining political analysis of the crisis with examination of forces at work in the recent past, this book's eight chapters focus on different aspects of what has been called Algeria's "second revolution". They aim to bring to light the forms that Islam has assumed politically and culturally in the country, and at the same time to present a critique of these forms from a traditional Islamic point of view.