What is Islam, and who counts as a true Muslim? Those questions are old, but in recent decades they have acquired new urgency across Muslim communities. Ali Riaz’s ‘Lived Islam & Islamism In Bangladesh’ approaches them from the ground up: is a religion simply a set of beliefs and rituals that exist apart from the people who hold them, or is it an institutionalised bargain — a contract of power between the individual and society? Riaz answers by looking closely at everyday religious practice and political activism in Bangladesh, and the argument that emerges speaks to other Muslim-majority societies too. Published by Prothoma Prokashon, the book is clearly written and tightly reasoned, for scholars and general readers alike.