In this study sectarianism is dealt with as a particular system of relations between power and society and between society and the individual. Sectarianism is a reflection of the map of the distribution of power, a sign of how the individual defines their place and status within society, and the permitted limits for individual political practice. This, argues the author, makes sectarianism the flip side of the absence of citizenship and the consequences of the state’s failure to perform its tasks as a state. The study sets the many problems of sectarianism in the Arab world against the many major sects: Shiites, whose sense of particularity has grown to the extent of hunkering down outside the domain of the state; Christians, who are anxious about their situation and have begun to seek internal or external safety for protection; and Sunnites, for whom the idea of Sultanate rule (where one culture dominates another in a parallel with absolute rule) is still playing on the mind of the Islamists.