Algeria is a nation beset with endemic--one might almost say systemic--violence: extra-judicial killings and routinized torture by a state claiming to be legitimate, monstrous acts of terrorism by groups calling themselves ""Islamic."" In the past four years, approximately 100,000 people have been killed: that is, on average, 500 people every week, with countless more maimed, injured, and traumatized. How is one to explain this explosion of violence, on the one hand, and this exploitation and distortion of Islam, on the other? This book comprises eight chapters which focus on different aspects of the crisis in Algeria, combining political analysis of its causes with forces at work in the recent past. They bring to light the forms that Islam has assumed politically and culturally in Algeria, and at the same time present a critique of these forms ""from within,"" that is, from a traditional Islamic point of view.