The idea for this book was born out of my awareness of the globalization-driven shifts in the nature and representation of Islamic religious authority and leadership and of state–Muslim relations worldwide. At the same time, my many years of research into Islam in ex-Soviet Muslim Eurasia convinced me of its distinctively Eurasian characteristics and dynamics, as well as of its particular responses to external Islamic, non-Islamic and anti-Islamic influences. I was also aware of the continuing divergence between the post-Soviet Eurasian and the Western scholarship on Islam (and other historical and contemporary matters related to Eurasia), which led me to attempt the merging of their distinct academic approaches. I should emphasize that I use the term ‘Eurasia’ in its narrow geopolitical meaning in relation to post-Soviet Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, while recognizing Eurasia's physiographic expanse from the Arctic Ocean in the north, the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean in the south, the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Pacific Ocean in the east. My focus here is on Islamic authorities and leadership, exploring how throughout history they have sought to safeguard Islam despite politically and culturally adverse conditions and external domination. Conceptually, I make a nuanced distinction between Islamic authority that is primarily of a moral, religious and legal nature, and Islamic leadership which combines these characteristics with political engagement. I am particularly concerned with the historical evolution of the triangular relationship between the Islamic authorities/leadership; the state and Muslim grassroots communities across the territory corresponding to post-Soviet Eurasia; and how it compares with that relationship in the Islamic heartlands as well as in Europe. I also discuss the implications for this relationship of the end of the Cold War and the ensuing globalization. As in my other works, I treat the researched region as an integrated sociocultural area with its specific historical, cultural, socio-economic and political characteristics. My choice of the Muslim Middle East and Muslim communities in Europe for comparative purposes is defined by post-Soviet Eurasia's geographical, historical, cultural and political entanglement with these regions. For this reason I have left Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Nigeria and other Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority parts of the world out of my analysis.