Can Islam be republican? Open Source Ecumenism reads a new book in French.

While I'm away Dr B has been busy taking some time out with his newspaper and at our local bookshop where he's bought"L'Islam Republicain: Ankara, Teheran, Dakar" by Jean-Francois Bayart.
You can read more about the book over on Open Source Ecumenism. Here's a taster:

In one sense the book is a investigation of the relationship between religion and the state in three majority-Muslim countries.In another, it's a polemic, sparked off by the discussion on a burka ban, with a prevailing intellectual atmosphere in France that asserts a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and Republican values, such as the equality of women, and according to which "Republican Islam" is an oxymoron.