In later years an abundance of collected volumes on various aspects of "Islam" have appeared. T his "Islam" has been used as the element in common for a wide range of phenomena in a vast area. In this upsurge of interest it has not always been made sufficiently clear whether "Islam" really supplies the most suitable frame of reference for the phenomena described. Islam is obviously one religion, but could it meaningfully be treated as one culture, one social order, one political philosophy? Is the Islamic community, the umma, a more coherent entity than, say, Christendom? The present work is a case in point. It is based on fourteen papers read at an international symposium held in 1984 at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Although the volume allegedly treats "Islam: State and Society," it is in fact divided in three p arts: "On Contemporary Islamic Studies,"" Authority and the State," and "Secularization: Nation-State and Modernization." from JSTOR http://www.jstor.org (Dec. 10, 2012)