Why are contemporary Muslim countries backwards? Why do they lag behind on almost every measure of economic and political development, while collapsing into violence at similarly disproportionate rates? This is a question that looms over every thinking person concerned with the fate of these countries. The usual explanations tend to fall back on some familiar cliche: blaming either Western colonialism as the sole cause worth mentioning, or attributing the problems to the inherent nature of the r

Why are contemporary Muslim countries backwards? Why do they lag behind on almost every measure of economic and political development, while collapsing into violence at similarly disproportionate rates? This is a question that looms over every thinking person concerned with the fate of these countries. The usual explanations tend to fall back on some familiar cliche: blaming either Western colonialism as the sole cause worth mentioning, or attributing the problems to the inherent nature of the religion of Islam itself.



Having tired of these cliched and self-serving explanations I found this book by Ahmet Kuru to be a refreshing attempt at offering a substantively new thesis. For several centuries the Islamic world was the most culturally, intellectually and economically developed civilization extant. The driver of this dynamism was the existence of independent intellectuals, supported by an independent mercantile bourgeois. Several centuries after Islam was created, an alliance began to form between the establishment clergy (ulema) and governing military elites. This alliance worked to shut down the mercantile bourgeois and snuff out the space for independent intellectuals. This fostered a stultifying atmosphere in which the authority to create legitimate knowledge was monopolized by a small elite, in league with the military state.



The interest of this alliance has been maintaining their prerogatives and defending tradition, as well as preventing any potentially disruptive independent power structures (like independent merchants and intellectuals) from arising in society. As the saying goes, “no bourgeois, no democracy.” Democracy in this case can also refer to development, free civil society and political stability — all of which Muslims lack. It is worth reflecting that a disproportionate number of the greatest Islamic philosophers, like Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and al-Farabi, arose before the ulema-military elite alliance coalesced.



This argument could be thoroughly summed up in a few dozen pages. In a sense, then, a lot of the book was filler to give added context to what decline and rise really meant for Muslim countries, as well as the European societies they are often contrasted with. I was interested to see the rather harsh appraisal of the role of Mohammad al-Ghazali, who is often blamed for helping solidify the “Sunni orthodoxy” that became the governing ideology of the ulema-military elite alliance. Kuru emphasizes that a lot of what we consider Islam today is really highly-contingent and could easily have not been part of the religion. Many of the rules and practices that people consider sacred today (particularly vis a vis political theory) are in fact the accreted decision-making of people trying to govern a society in their interest at a certain period in history. Much of Islamic political theory is in fact adapted from Sassanid Persia, which exerted a strong influence over its Arab conquerors. The famous hadith about religion and the state being twins — supposedly emphasizing Islam’s inherently political character — was in fact a Sassanid maxim that was later laundered into Muslim political discourse by those who found it useful at the time. Even the notorious edict about executing apostates derives from Zoroastrianism. It is too bad that critical knowledge of Islam and Islamic history is so sparse, both among laypeople and so-called extremists.



Nothing as complex of civilizational decline can ever be monocausal. Having said that I found Kuru's explanation to be a plausible explanation for the decline and continued stagnation of Muslim countries. Even in the 20th century when many Muslim countries putatively secularized, the same authoritarian practices continued, with secular bureaucrats replacing the ulema of the past. The secularists have been just as hostile to independent intellectual life and the independent bourgeois as the clerics. With the powers of the modern state they have created an unbearably repressive atmosphere that has led to the compounding tragedy of wasted generations. I am often deeply impressed by the highly-intelligent and autodidactic people I meet in Muslim countries and wonder how different things could be were they operating under a governing structure that valued their abilities. No one who lives in a country which allows freedom of speech and intellectual pursuit, especially as it relates to Islamic issues, should take this for granted.



If there is a solution, it is to lift the heavy hand of the state enough to allow a powerful independent merchant class to form, which will then begin patronizing independent intellectuals as it did during the heydey of the Islamicate. Independent Muslim intellectuals still arise today, though they often find themselves hounded by repressive states and clerical establishments. Allowing a free intellectual environment and greater contestation over the legitimate goals and purposes of Islam can also help clarify that much of what we consider “Islamic” today (particularly in political theory) is in fact highly-contingent and not vital. In other words, Muslims need meritocracy and independence in order to rediscover their past dynamism. This explanation makes intuitive sense to me and I hope that the book is read carefully in Muslim countries.