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POLITICS, RELIGION & IDEOLOGY 461 cultural spheres. Rooted in field work undertaken in Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2019, a time when Islamic activists were vanishing from public spaces due to death, imprisonment, or going into hiding, Menoret’s main concern is to document the creative ways Saudis have engaged and opposed an increasingly repressive and authoritarian state, even as he argues that the Saudi population tends to be complacent and participate in their own oppression. Menoret focuses on Islamic activism not out of interest in doctrinal traditions, belief systems, or how individuals use religion to cultivate themselves, but because he finds that Islamic activism has proven uniquely capable of organizing and creating institutions and loyalties outside of the state’s purview, crafting both individual and collective social transformation. He argues that Islamic activism has served as a useful political …