Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment
A Global and Historical Comparison

Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.

Ahmet T. Kuru (Author)

9781108419093, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 August 2019

316 pages, 5 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.58 kg

'A magnum opus; it appears to be a product of painstaking inquiries, enormous bibliographical research, nuanced historical comparisons, and interdisciplinary analyses.' Serhan Tanr?verdi, Turkish Studies

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.

Introduction
Part I. Present: 1. Violence and peace
2. Authoritarianism and democracy
3. Socio-economic underdevelopment and development
Part II. History: 4. Progress: scholars and merchants (seventh to eleventh centuries)
5. Crisis: the invaders (twelfth to fourteenth centuries)
6. Power: three Muslim empires (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries)
7. Collapse: Western colonialism and Muslim reformists (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries)
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Islamic studies [JFSR2], Islam [HRH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]