The lecture will address the question of Muslim political traditions: what they might have been in the past, to what extent they might be considered to be intrinsically Muslim rather than common to other political traditions in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and what they are not. The past two centuries have seen fundamental changes in Muslim lands, as elsewhere. This history raises the question of what remained of the classical political paradigms, and whether what is seen to have remained is at all active in the politics of Muslim lands, and in what way.