This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book offers an ethnographic study of the Sudanese experience with the Islamic state from its revolutionary establishment in 1989 to the present, with a particular focus on the years of National Unity, 2005–11, when the author lived in Sudan for a prolonged period of time. The period of National Unity between the ruling National Congress Party and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, representing the South, was particularly interesting because it constituted perhaps the first time since coming to power that the Islamists were compelled to grapple with religious pluralism as they sought to construct a state that did not give up on its Islamic aspirations, but might also appeal to non-Muslims.