In Quest of Justice provides the first full account of the establishment and workings of a new kind of state in Egypt in the modern period. Drawing on groundbreaking research in the Egyptian archives, this highly original book shows how the state affected those subject to it and their response. Illustrating how shari'a was actually implemented, how criminal justice functioned, and how scientific-medical knowledges and practices were introduced, Khaled Fahmy offers exciting new interpretations that are neither colonial nor nationalist. Moreover he shows how lower-class Egyptians did not see modern practices that fused medical and legal purposes in new ways as contrary to Islam. This is a major contribution to our understanding of Islam and modernity.