demand for a return to the sharia throughout the Arab world reflect a grave dissatisfaction with the lawless authoritarianism of contemporary regimes in the region and a nostalgia for a time when executive power was limited by a genuine respect for law. He maintains that the demand for sharia should be seen not simply as a reactionary turning back of the clock to medieval Islam, but rather as a desire for a more balanced regime in which political power would be willing to live within predictable rules.
