Description
| Product ID: | 9781108409476 |
| Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Title: | Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment |
| Subtitle: | A Global and Historical Comparison |
| Authors: | Author: Ahmet T. Kuru |
| Page Count: | 316 |
| Subjects: | Middle Eastern history, Middle Eastern history, Islam, Social groups: religious groups and communities, Comparative politics, Development economics and emerging economies, Islam, Islamic studies, Comparative politics, Development economics & emerging economies, Islamic countries |
| Description: | Select Guide Rating Why do contemporary Muslim societies have problems of authoritarianism and socio-economic underdevelopment, despite their early history of intellectual creativity and economic progress? Kuru provides a comparative analysis of Muslim and Western European countries, focusing on the roles of religious, political, intellectual, and economic classes. Why do Muslim-majority countries exhibit high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison to world averages? Ahmet T. Kuru criticizes explanations which point to Islam as the cause of this disparity, because Muslims were philosophically and socio-economically more developed than Western Europeans between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Nor was Western colonialism the cause: Muslims had already suffered political and socio-economic problems when colonization began. Kuru argues that Muslims had influential thinkers and merchants in their early history, when religious orthodoxy and military rule were prevalent in Europe. However, in the eleventh century, an alliance between orthodox Islamic scholars (the ulema) and military states began to emerge. This alliance gradually hindered intellectual and economic creativity by marginalizing intellectual and bourgeois classes in the Muslim world. This important study links its historical explanation to contemporary politics by showing that, to this day, ulema-state alliance still prevents creativity and competition in Muslim countries. |
| Imprint Name: | Cambridge University Press |
| Publisher Name: | Cambridge University Press |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2019-08-01 |
