Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment Kuru Ahmet T. San Diego State University
Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment Kuru Ahmet T. San Diego State University Why do Muslim-majority countries exhibit high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic…
Specifikacia Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment Kuru Ahmet T. San Diego State University
Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment Kuru Ahmet T. San Diego State University
Why do Muslim-majority countries exhibit high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison to world averages? Ahmet T. Nor was Western colonialism the cause: Muslims had already suffered political and socio-economic problems when colonization began. 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.
However, in the eleventh century, an alliance between orthodox Islamic scholars (the ulema) and military states began to emerge. Kuru argues that Muslims had influential thinkers and merchants in their early history, when religious orthodoxy and military rule were prevalent in Europe. This alliance gradually hindered intellectual and economic creativity by marginalizing intellectual