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Abstract
Religious Freedom without the Rule of Law: The Constitutional Odysseys of Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iraq and the Fate of the Middle East compares the domestic and international efforts to instill the values and practices of the rule of law in the Middle East in the early twenty-first century with their disappointing performances in terms of safety, political volatility, human rights violations, and, especially, religious freedom. It zooms in on Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iraq to argue that international interventions and local struggles underestimated the ethno-religious mosaic of these countries and their ideological cleavages. The rule of law could not reasonably replace local rights and promote religious freedom as many hoped. The notions of individualism, equality, rights, and courts, which are among the strongest philosophical underpinnings of the rule of law, are explored and contrasted with the political and constitutional culture of the Middle East. The work concludes that securing stability and protecting religious freedom in the region requires compromising on the rule of law and that the consociational model of constitutionalism would probably have better chances of achieving them.