This book, based substantially on a Ph.D. thesis, and postdoctoral funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, represents a bold, coherent but also balanced and ‘realist’ dissection of the role and significance of religious belief and practice within social welfare provision. The context for this research is Lebanon, whose deeply bifurcated social landscape is based on religious, ethnic and class divisions and whose long-held loyalties and antipathies sporadically break out into civil war and violent incursion. These civil wars, and the generic instability and democratic paralysis they create, are also fermented by foreign sovereign states (namely, Iran, Israel, Syria, the US) for whom Lebanon represents a strategic priority due to its location at the heart of the Middle East.

Although economically dynamic and often educationally advanced within certain sectors, a significant proportion of Lebanon's population remains in cycles of chronic poverty and poor education. With an absence of a coherent government structure or public sector, much responsibility falls on the traditional and longstanding religious charities and organisations in the Lebanon to provide basic social welfare, which they tend to do following strict geographical, ethnic, political and religious loyalties. It is this complex, under-researched and poorly conceptualised field of religious-based engagement in social policy that Jawad seeks to analyse, arguing that religion, whether it is through the state apparatus civil society or populist religious movements, offers sophisticated solutions to deep-seated social and economic problems in the Middle East. She also offers a route map for the future development of social policy both for Lebanon and the Middle East region as a whole which seeks to harness and develop the existing contributions being made by religious groups. The road she travels to these conclusions is detailed and sophisticated as befits someone with high levels of personal and professional experience in the region.

Jawad carefully lays the groundwork for her arguments with an insightful account into the historical legacies of colonialism, economic development and religion in the region. She critiques the poorly developed notion of social welfare based on the concept of the Rentier State whereby public services are provided in piecemeal and regressive ways based on revenues from natural resources (namely gas and oil). She then links this weak concept of social welfare with the dearth of adequate social welfare and development models and theories produced by the secular milieu of Western social science. These are incapable of authentically speaking into the tribal and religiously influenced context of the Middle East. In particular, the tendency to view religious welfare as simply another form of voluntary action (typical of much literature from the ‘developed’ world) fails to understand the fully holistic nature of religious-based welfare. This ‘holistic’ view involves an explicit moral or ethical dimension, a clear connection between religious belief (i.e. theological worldview) and civil/political engagement, and a commitment to the spiritual development and wellbeing of clients as much as material wellbeing. It also involves an expansion of the concept of poverty – for example the concept of istid'aaf which carries with it strong connotations of oppression and disempowerment.

The main bulk of the book is taken up with a series of detailed case studies (using focus groups) including the Ministry of Social Affairs (as the government agency) and five prominent religious welfare providers working in the country – two Christian-based and three Islamic-based, including Hizbullah. Several key findings emerge out of the research material. For example, that the nature of religious welfare is premised on spiritual faith as a counter-logic to social welfare based on social insurance, and in which social service is seen as a human obligation (based on notions of human solidarity or Takaaful) and an act of worship. And as indicated earlier, the strengths of Jawad's analysis of religious engagement in Lebanese public life is that it is balanced. Her analysis recognises the progressive elements religious agencies bring: such as developing human capabilities and encouraging self-sufficiency as part of a strategy aimed at progressive social transformation – for example work with women's micro-economic enterprises. It also emphasises the regressive elements they provide, such as paternalistic dependency models in which moral rectitude and concern at integration into existing cultural norms displaces more radical social analysis and income distribution. This has the effect of reproducing existing social norms and hierarchies rather than challenging them or providing alternatives.

There are weaknesses in the book which are mainly to do with length and editing – this book reads like a Ph.D. thesis rather than a slick or streamlined presentation in several places. Stricter editing would have prevented some longeurs in the middle of the book in which too much verbatim material is reproduced and too many themes and subheadings created to no great overall effect. More analysis could be made of the differences between Christian- and Muslim-based religious welfare providers for example, and the new typology of welfare model proposed – that of ‘social ethics-welfare particularism’– is not readily user friendly or comprehensible.

But these weaknesses should not detract from the important achievements of this timely book which breaks new ground in analysing and typologising the importance of religious-based welfare. This source of welfare can no longer be ignored by the more secular side of social scientific engagement in social welfare, human development and nation building. This book is an original, competent and credible contribution as seen through the ‘lens’ of religious identity and spiritual belief. It offers a compelling and full analysis of the state of social welfare in Lebanon, certain elements of which reflect the Middle East as a whole, clearly showing the challenges that lie ahead, but also offering strategic ways forward. It also offers tantalising frameworks for interpreting the growing role and contribution of the religious sector in so-called ‘developed’ democracies and such as the UK and Europe. More inter-cultural and inter-continental research inspired by the aspirations and methodologies of this book will, I hope, take place in the future.