When it comes to a book by Gilles Kepels, expectations are high.

The French social scientist and expert on Islamism has been presenting authoritative works for three decades.

They have significantly shaped the public debate about Islam, Islamist violence and jihad.

But his latest book is unlikely to enter the canon of his great monographs.

Rainer Herman

Editor in Politics.

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It's not just because the title is misleading.

Kepel succeeds in describing how the Middle East is sinking into “chaos” largely through its own fault.

However, the addition "and Covid" is mainly used to promote sales.

In the book itself, the reference to the pandemic appears rather marginally.

The subtitle "How the pandemic is changing North Africa and the Middle East" is not redeemed.

One would like to read how the individual regimes are dealing with the pandemic and whether the quality of the health systems is a reflection of the governance.

Or how good treatment often becomes a bonus for regime loyalty.

Kepel's leitmotif is the woodcut-like division of the Middle East and North Africa into two axes: the good axis of the Abraham Accords, i.e. the Arab countries that normalized their relations with Israel in 2020, and the bad axis of political Islam, i.e. the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and Shia Islam.

On the chessboard are the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Egypt, supplemented by Saudi Arabia, their opponents Qatar, Turkey and Iran - and France is always on the good axis with the game.

With the zeal of a conscientious chronicler

By the time the book was published, however, reality had already partially overtaken it.

Saudi Arabia and the Emirates had ended their boycott of Qatar, Turkey had begun to mend relations with the Emirates, Egypt and Israel, and there was still no sign that Turkey would allegedly work so closely with Iran.

Kepel's dealings with Turkey, one of Europe's certainly difficult partners, is quite amazing.

It is remarkable the polemics with which Kepel is constantly dealing with Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan.

He makes him the mentor of political Islam par excellence, who also repeatedly thwarts France's plans with his neo-imperial claims.

However, the author fails to notice that Erdoğan, as an opportunistic power man, uses the opportunities that others offer him.

When reading, the numerous factual errors that raise the question of where the editors had their eyes are always irritating.

The Saudi king is made five years older than he is, the Turkish research ship Oruç Reis becomes a warship, the Protestant Order of St. John becomes a Catholic one.

Kepel makes the two strongmen of the United Arab Emirates, Muhammad Bin Zayed and Tahnoun Bin Zayed, half brothers, but they are full brothers of the same mother Fatima.

Ten million people live in the Emirates, not three million, as Kepel writes.

Such errors and inaccuracies continue.