Introduction : clash of civilizations or universal history?
The Muslim countries in the movement of history. The growth of literacy and the decline in fertility ; A "disenchantment" of the Muslim world
Crises of transition. Literacy, contraception, revolution ; Muslim crises of transition ; Islamism and forecasting the future ; The question of ideological content
The Arab family and the transition crisis. Patrilinealism and patrilocalism ; The Shiite law of inheritance ; Endogamy ; Psychological and ideological implications of endogamy ; The shock of modernization
Other Muslim women : East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Malaysian and Indonesian matrilocalism ; The mass polygamy of Sub-Saharan Africa ; Unprecedented transition crises?
At the heart of Islam : the Arab world. A belated and unexpected transition : literacy and oil wealth ; France and the acceleration of the transition in the Maghreb ; Backwardness and division in Syria : Sunnis and Alawites ; The heterogeneity of the Arabian peninsula ; A European Lebanon? ; The Palestinians : occupation, war, and fertility
The non-Arab greater Middle East. Iran ahead of Turkey ; The uncertain role of the state ; Demographic transition and nation-state ; Religion, demography, democracy ; The Pakistani demographic time bomb ; Demographic normality and political threat ; Afghan parenthesis ; Bangladesh : overpopulation and decline of the fertility rate
After communism. Accelerated increase in literacy ; Un-Islamic birth control : through abortion ... ; ... And through infant mortality ; Muslim divergences in the Balkans
Matrilocal Asia. A normal transition that has stopped ; In Malaysia, nationalism rather than Islam
Sub-Saharan Africa. Regional differences in fertility : ethnic groups and religions ; Muslim girls spared by mortality.