Moscow, IV RAS, Center for Strategic Conjuncture, 2014, 254 p. The collection was prepared on the basis of reports made at the round table "Economic, socio-political, ethno-confessional problems of the Eastern countries", held in November 2013 by the research team of the Center for Research on General Problems of the Modern East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The book is dedicated to the memory of Albert Ivanovich Kuprin (28.11.1941-14.02.2013), a well-known Russian specialist on socio-political and cultural problems of North African countries. The collection is interdisciplinary in nature and contains articles covering a wide range of topics-from the nature of relations between Sunnis and Shiites in Saudi Arabia to the role of BRICS in the global economy. The first block of research "Islam: history and modernity" reflects certain aspects of the evolution of Islamism and Arabism and includes articles by Z. I. Levin (IB RAS) "Arab Nationalism and Islam", R. G. Landa (IB RAS) "Morisci heirs of Andalusian culture" and O. P. Bibikova (IB RAS) " Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula". З. I. Levin draws a clear dividing line between Islam as the only world religion that doctrinally does not accept a secular state, and Arab nationalism (pan-Arabism), an ideology based on the idea of the Arabs as a single nation; the socio-political ideal of Islam is a theocentric society of co-religionists, nationalism is a secular state, civil society. Islam appeals to fellow Muslims, making no distinction between them except in terms of piety, and nationalism in Islam is considered a factor that divides the Ummah -the Muslim community, while nationalism appeals to citizens and does not recognize the dominance of religion in society (p. 11). Answering the extremely relevant question of how to explain the successful coexistence in Muslim countries of the secular ideology of Arab nationalism with a high level of religiosity of citizens, the author convin ... Read more