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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book originated from a Ph.D. thesis on Egypt and slowly expanded to include two more case studies, those of Yemen and Jordan. It has thus been approximately a ten-year effort, during which time I have relied on many institutions and people. I am indebted to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the American Institute for Yemeni Studies in Ardmore, Pennsylvania; and the Council for the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire for the financial support and the ability to leave for the field when it was necessary. I would also like to express my thanks to the Department of Political Science at the University of Guelph for granting me the time to complete the manuscript. Without this institutional support, this book would not have been possible. I also owe my gratitude to the many Egyptians, Yemenis, Jordanians, and Palestinians who aided me in the field, befriended me, and granted me time-consuming interviews. Their help was invaluable. As this book centers not just on Islamic social institutions but on the social networks in which they are embedded, I am especially indebted to those who brought me into those social circles, had me over for meals, invited me to family weddings, let me spend the night at their homes, and brought me into their confidence. In particular, I need to thank the many women I met and befriended . It was their networks that not only aided me in accessing interviews , but, by bringing me into them, granted me my greatest insights. Their friendships were the most rewarding aspect of my field work. As my research concerns both Islamic social institutions (ISIs) and their institutional and, primarily, social networks, my interviews extended far beyond site visits to the ISIs and with Islamists. I interviewed Islamists and non-Islamists working in the entire spectrum of society. This included men and women in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Action Front and the Hizb al-Islah Party; Islamists and non-Islamists working in Islamic social institutions other than the ones under study and in other nongovernmental organizations; and Islamists engaged in different activities, such as university student councils and the elected boards of directors of various syndicates such as the doctors’ and the engineers’ syndicates. I also visited numerous Islamic cultural centers and regularly attended weekly Qur

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