Download or read book Islam and Mammon written by Timur Kuran and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-16 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The doctrine of "Islamic economics" entered debates over the social role of Islam in the mid-twentieth century. Since then it has pursued the goal of restructuring economies according to perceived Islamic teachings. Beyond its most visible practical achievement--the establishment of Islamic banks meant to avoid interest--it has promoted Islamic norms of economic behavior and founded redistribution systems modeled after early Islamic fiscal practices. In this bold and timely critique, Timur Kuran argues that the doctrine of Islamic economics is simplistic, incoherent, and largely irrelevant to present economic challenges. Observing that few Muslims take it seriously, he also finds that its practical applications have had no discernible effects on efficiency, growth, or poverty reduction. Why, then, has Islamic economics enjoyed any appeal at all? Kuran's answer is that the real purpose of Islamic economics has not been economic improvement but cultivation of a distinct Islamic identity to resist cultural globalization. The Islamic subeconomies that have sprung up across the Islamic world are commonly viewed as manifestations of Islamic economics. In reality, Kuran demonstrates, they emerged to meet the economic aspirations of socially marginalized groups. The Islamic enterprises that form these subeconomies provide advancement opportunities to the disadvantaged. By enhancing interpersonal trust, they also facilitate intragroup transactions. These findings raise the question of whether there exist links between Islam and economic performance. Exploring these links in relation to the long-unsettled question of why the Islamic world became underdeveloped, Kuran identifies several pertinent social mechanisms, some beneficial to economic development, others harmful.

Download or read book Islam And Mammonthe Economic Predicaments Of Islamism written by Timur Kuran and published by . This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The doctrine of Islamic economics entered Islamic discourses in the mid-twentieth century. Since then it has pursued the goal of restructuring economies according to perceived Islamic teachings. Beyond its most visible practical achievement the establishment of Islamic banks meant to avoid interest it has promoted Islamic norms of economic behaviour and founded redistribution systems modelled after early Islamic fiscal practices.In this bold and timely critique, Timur Kuran argues that the doctrine of Islamic economics is simplistic, incoherent, and largely irrelevant to present economic challenges. Observing that few Muslims take it seriously, he also finds that its practical applications have had no discernible effects on efficiency, growth, or poverty reduction. Why, then, has Islamic economics enjoyed any appeal at all? His answer is that its real purpose has not been economic improvement but cultivation of a distinct Islamic identity to resist cultural globalization.The Islamic subeconomies that have sprung up across the Islamic world are commonly viewed as manifestations of Islamic economics. In reality, Kuran demonstrates, they emerged to meet the economic aspirations of socially marginalized groups. The Islamic enterprises that form these subeconomies provide advancement opportunities to the disadvantaged. By enhancing interpersonal trust, they also facilitate intra-group transactions.These findings raise the question of whether there exist links between Islam and economic performance. Exploring these links in relation to the long-unsettled question of why the Islamic world became under-developed, Kuran identifies several pertinent social mechanisms, some beneficial to economic development, others harmful.Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Law, and King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought and Culture, at the University of Southern California. His books include Private Truths, Public Lies. What is Islamic banking? What is Islamic economics? Islam and Mammon . . . sets out the genesis of these ideas and criticizes, severely but still sympathetically, both the performance and the underlying logic of this Islamic approach to economic activity. L. Carl Brown, Foreign Affairs [A] first-rate analysis. . . . It is refreshing to see a work that stands apart from the mishmash of cultural relativism of Islamophiles and the ideological warfare of the Islamophobes. Sohrab Behdad, Denison University

Download or read book Islam and Mammon written by Nursilah Ahmad and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Long Divergence written by Timur Kuran and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-11 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How religious barriers stalled capitalism in the Middle East In the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen dramatically behind—in living standards, technology, and economic institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically underdeveloped compared to the West? In The Long Divergence, one of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these long-debated questions. Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life—including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up. And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and weak civil societies—all characteristic of the region's economies today and all legacies of its economic history—will take generations to overcome. The Long Divergence opens up a frank and honest debate on a crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the Muslim world have hesitated to discuss.

Download or read book The Long Divergence written by Timur Kuran and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-11 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How religious barriers stalled capitalism in the Middle East In the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen dramatically behind—in living standards, technology, and economic institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically underdeveloped compared to the West? In The Long Divergence, one of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these long-debated questions. Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life—including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up. And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and weak civil societies—all characteristic of the region's economies today and all legacies of its economic history—will take generations to overcome. The Long Divergence opens up a frank and honest debate on a crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the Muslim world have hesitated to discuss.

Download or read book Muslim Civilization written by M. Umer Chapra and published by Kube Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This is] a subject of such relevance and importance that one wonders why nobody else dealt with it in book form before."—Dr. Wilfried Hofmann Muslim civilization has experienced a decline during the last five centuries after previously having undergone a long period of prosperity and comprehensive development. This raises a number of questions such as what factors enable Muslims to become successful during the earlier centuries of Islam and what led them to their present weak position. Is Islam responsible for this decline or are there some other factors which come into play? M. Umer Chapra provides an authoritative diagnosis and prescription to reverse this decline. M. Umer Chapra is a research advisor at the Islamic Research and Training Institute of the Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah, and author of The Future of Economics and Islam and the Economic Challenge.

Download or read book The Enchantments of Mammon written by Eugene McCarraher and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An extraordinary work of intellectual history as well as a scholarly tour de force, a bracing polemic, and a work of Christian prophecy...McCarraher challenges more than 200 years of post-Enlightenment assumptions about the way we live and work.” —The Observer At least since Max Weber, capitalism has been understood as part of the “disenchantment” of the world, stripping material objects and social relations of their mystery and magic. In this magisterial work, Eugene McCarraher challenges this conventional view. Capitalism, he argues, is full of sacrament, whether one is prepared to acknowledge it or not. First flowering in the fields and factories of England and brought to America by Puritans and evangelicals, whose doctrine made ample room for industry and profit, capitalism has become so thoroughly enmeshed in the fabric of our society that our faith in “the market” has become sacrosanct. Informed by cultural history and theology as well as management theory, The Enchantments of Mammon looks to nineteenth-century Romantics, whose vision of labor combined reason, creativity, and mutual aid, for salvation. In this impassioned challenge to some of our most firmly held assumptions, McCarraher argues that capitalism has hijacked our intrinsic longing for divinity—and urges us to break its hold on our souls. “A majestic achievement...It is a work of great moral and spiritual intelligence, and one that invites contemplation about things we can’t afford not to care about deeply.” —Commonweal “More brilliant, more capacious, and more entertaining, page by page, than his most ardent fans dared hope. The magnitude of his accomplishment—an account of American capitalism as a religion...will stun even skeptical readers.” —Christian Century

Download or read book Islam and the Post Revolutionary State in Iran written by Homa Omid and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: '...her short analysis of the Iranian armed forces in the 1980s is first-rate, so too is her much more substantial section on women and the state in Iran...As well as offering useful insights into the workings of the Islamic state in Iran, this readable book also provides a warning of the struggles ahead in many other Muslim societies.' - Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Times Higher Education Supplement ;Islam has been the driving force shaping the ideology and the power base of the Iranian revolution. This volume engages critically with the Islamic perspective and promises offered by the revolution. Looking at the rise of the religious institution as a revolutionary force, the author observes their post-revolutionary policies in the domains of politics, economics, education, the armed forces and women's status. In the event, the volume demonstrates that the Iranian government has failed to deliver on most, if not all, of its Islamic pledges.

Download or read book Islamic Finance written by Mahmoud A. El-Gamal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-03 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the practice of Islamic finance and the historical roots that define its modes of operation. The focus of the book is analytical and forward-looking. It shows that Islamic finance exists mainly as a form of rent-seeking legal-arbitrage. In every aspect of finance - from personal loans to investment banking, and from market structure to corporate governance - Islamic finance aims to replicate in Islamic forms the substantive functions of contemporary financial instruments, markets, and institutions. By attempting to replicate the substance of contemporary financial practice using pre-modern contract forms, Islamic finance has arguably failed to serve the objectives of Islamic law. This book proposes refocusing Islamic finance on substance rather than form. This approach would entail abandoning the paradigm of 'Islamization' of every financial practice. It would also entail reorienting the brand-name of Islamic finance to emphasize issues of community banking, micro-finance, and socially responsible investment.

Download or read book Private Truths Public Lies written by Timur Kuran and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-16 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities. A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change. In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency. Private Truths, Public Lies uses its theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena. They include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India's caste system.

Download or read book Islamic perspectives relating to business arts culture and communication written by Roaimah Omar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book explores how the Malays and Muslims in general are faced with challenges in the fields of business, economy and politics, in the modern era of globalisation. These research findings can help the Muslim community to enhance international integration, particularly in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. In this work, scholarly and expert authors explore Islamic perspectives on communication, art and culture, business, and law and policy. They respond to the need to uphold and strengthen the culture, arts and heritage of the Malays. Readers are invited to explore the challenges for the Malay and Muslim world and to evolve strategies to ensure competitiveness, dynamism and sustainability. Topics such as Islamophobia, drug trafficking, savings behaviours and the role of social media are addressed. These reviewed papers were presented at the International Conference on Islamic Business, Art, Culture & Communication 2014, held in Melaka, Malaysia. They have the potential to strengthen aspects of Islamic economy and leadership, if translated into action plans. This book represents essential reading for scholars of Islamic studies and will be of interest to those examining Southeast Asia and the Malay world.

Download or read book A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire written by Sevket Pamuk and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-03-09 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important book on the monetary history of the Ottoman empire by a leading economic historian.

Download or read book The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought written by Gerhard Bowering and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 2012, the year 1433 of the Muslim calendar, the Islamic population throughout the world was estimated at approximately a billion and a half, representing about one-fifth of humanity. In geographical terms, Islam occupies the center of the world, stretching like a big belt across the globe from east to west."--P. vii.

Download or read book Radical Religious and Violent written by Eli Berman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Applying fresh tools from economics to explain puzzling behaviors of religious radicals: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish; violent and benign. How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In Radical, Religious, and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. He first dispels some myths: radical religious terrorists are not generally motivated by the promise of rewards in the afterlife (including the infamous seventy-two virgins) or even by religious ideas in general. He argues that these terrorists (even suicide terrorists) are best understood as rational altruists seeking to help their own communities. Yet despite the vast pool of potential recruits—young altruists who feel their communities are repressed or endangered—there are less than a dozen highly lethal terrorist organizations in the world capable of sustained and coordinated violence that threatens governments and makes hundreds of millions of civilians hesitate before boarding an airplane. What's special about these organizations, and why are most of their followers religious radicals? Drawing on parallel research on radical religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Berman shows that the most lethal terrorist groups have a common characteristic: their leaders have found a way to control defection. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban, for example, built loyalty and cohesion by means of mutual aid, weeding out “free riders” and producing a cadre of members they could rely on. The secret of their deadly effectiveness lies in their resilience and cohesion when incentives to defect are strong.These insights suggest that provision of basic social services by competent governments adds a critical, nonviolent component to counterterrorism strategies. It undermines the violent potential of radical religious organizations without disturbing free religious practice, being drawn into theological debates with Jihadists, or endangering civilians.

Download or read book Mullahs Merchants and Militants written by Stephen Glain and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thousand years ago, a vast Arab empire stretched from the Asian steppe across the Mediterranean to Spain, pioneering new technologies, sciences, art and culture. Arab traders and Arab currencies dominated the global economy in ways Western multinationals and the dollar do today. A thousand years later, Arab states are in decay. Official corruption and ineptitude have eroded state authority and created a vacuum that militant Islam has rushed to fill. In Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants, Glain takes us on a journey through the heart of what were once the great Islamic caliphates, the countries now known as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Egypt, to illustrate how a once prosperous and enlightened civilization finds itself at a crossroads between a Dark Age and a New Dawn. As late as a century ago, what we call the Levant was a prosperous trading bloc. By carving the region into proxy states and emirates after the First World War, the Western powers Balkanized and undermined the Levantine economy. That in turn prepared the ground for a regional autocracy that rejected economic openness and religious tolerance, qualities that had made the old Islamic caliphates great. Today the Arab world has opted out of the global economy, with tragic consequences. It is up to the new generation of leaders -- and the Western governments that created the modern Middle East -- to reverse the sclerosis and revive the region.

Download or read book Islam the Straight Path written by Kenneth W. Morgan and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1958 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islam--the Straight Path is a concise presentation of the history and spread of Islam and of the beliefs and obligations of Muslims as interpreted by some outstanding Muslim scholars of our time from Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and China. The essays present a vivid picture of this faith which exerts tremendous influence on its votaries and has found its home from Morocco to Indonesia and China. The work is a portrayal of Islam as it is, with chapters devoted to subjects such as The Origin of Islam, Ideas and Movements in Islamic History, Islamic Beliefs and Code of Laws, The Rational and Mystical Interpretations of Islam, Shi'a, Islamic Culture in Arab and African Countries, Islamic Culture in Turkish Areas, Muslim Culture in Pakistan and India, Islamic Culture in China, Islam in Indonesia, and, Unity in Diversity in Islam. Each chapter epitomizes a subject which could scarcely be covered adequately in a whole book .

Download or read book Mammon and Manon in Early New Orleans written by Thomas N. Ingersoll and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Since Louisiana fell under the administration of France and Spain before becoming a U.S. territory in 1803, the case of New Orleans offers an opportunity to test the long-standing thesis that slave regimes under the French, Spanish, and Anglo-Americans were significantly different. Ingersoll finds that, by contrast, the city's development was remarkably continuous, affected mainly by the changing volume of its slave trade between 1719 and 1808 and thereafter primarily by urban conditions."--Couv.