Stick to feminist theory. I genuinely don't mean to be mean, but seriously, both your and Kuran's claims are wholly ahistoric and eurocentric. Saying Ghazali caused apostasy laws and patriarchy, while simultaneously believing that awqaf hobbled civil society is just so bizarre and the fact you both can't see how structurally this makes no sense is why silence is a virtue. Hand waving European colonialism by saying "well, why were Muslims unable to fight back?" And not mentioning the fact that Europeans looted an entire continent and another sub-continent before they were able to fight back against the Ottomans was probably important to mention. White women log off.
This has a bit of the feeling of a just-so story. It just seems like the article describes two features of an illiberal society and says, that is why these societies are illiberal, but there's no real evidence of the causality.
Most catholic countries had two institutions, the monasteries and the church, that seem to operate much like wagfs. They also persecuted apostates. But they still liberalized. One can argue that those institutions weakened and then liberalization ensued, but that means that something caused the institutions to weaken, and that this is the true cause of liberalization. The question would be why those institutions weakened in the catholic world but not in the Islamic one.
Moreover in America we also had many of these features. Early American colonies in new England enforced religious conformity and punished blasphemy. They also had a number of laws to prevent capital accumulation and prevent interlocking trusts. But we would still say New England was a liberal society.
Monasteries in the 11th century played an important role in the rediscovery of Roman corporate law. See Harold Berman's "Law and Revolution". This corporate law is what Kuran blamed for the Islamic world falling behind in "The Long Divergence".
Would the European move to liberalism be better explained by the building of impersonal trust from the Catholic ban on endogamy as suggested by Heinrich? In any case I find the Ghazali cultural ascendancy argument more convincing - a cultural mutation that spread rapidly because for whatever reason it was fitter. Generally, I find purely legal/formal institution arguments less convincing because I think of institutions as an effect of cultural evolution rather than a cause.
a Muslim man is required to kill, convert, collect a fee from infidel men; women are chattel. I am an infidel man. Muslims cannot have a friendship with an infidel and can/may/must lie, cheat, steal and kill infidels to further Islam. If there is ever a conflict in verses of the Quran always take the more recent verse; all the peaceful versions are at the beginning and covered over by the jihad mentality is the later more recent verses. Look up the McCarran Walters Act 1952, Islam is unconstitutional Article IV Section 4.
Thank you for the great write up Dr Alice, it has exposed me to ideas that I wouldnt normally come across, living in an Authoritarian Muslim Society.
Stick to feminist theory. I genuinely don't mean to be mean, but seriously, both your and Kuran's claims are wholly ahistoric and eurocentric. Saying Ghazali caused apostasy laws and patriarchy, while simultaneously believing that awqaf hobbled civil society is just so bizarre and the fact you both can't see how structurally this makes no sense is why silence is a virtue. Hand waving European colonialism by saying "well, why were Muslims unable to fight back?" And not mentioning the fact that Europeans looted an entire continent and another sub-continent before they were able to fight back against the Ottomans was probably important to mention. White women log off.
Thanks for the review and the contextualization.
This has a bit of the feeling of a just-so story. It just seems like the article describes two features of an illiberal society and says, that is why these societies are illiberal, but there's no real evidence of the causality.
Most catholic countries had two institutions, the monasteries and the church, that seem to operate much like wagfs. They also persecuted apostates. But they still liberalized. One can argue that those institutions weakened and then liberalization ensued, but that means that something caused the institutions to weaken, and that this is the true cause of liberalization. The question would be why those institutions weakened in the catholic world but not in the Islamic one.
Moreover in America we also had many of these features. Early American colonies in new England enforced religious conformity and punished blasphemy. They also had a number of laws to prevent capital accumulation and prevent interlocking trusts. But we would still say New England was a liberal society.
Monasteries in the 11th century played an important role in the rediscovery of Roman corporate law. See Harold Berman's "Law and Revolution". This corporate law is what Kuran blamed for the Islamic world falling behind in "The Long Divergence".
Would the European move to liberalism be better explained by the building of impersonal trust from the Catholic ban on endogamy as suggested by Heinrich? In any case I find the Ghazali cultural ascendancy argument more convincing - a cultural mutation that spread rapidly because for whatever reason it was fitter. Generally, I find purely legal/formal institution arguments less convincing because I think of institutions as an effect of cultural evolution rather than a cause.
a Muslim man is required to kill, convert, collect a fee from infidel men; women are chattel. I am an infidel man. Muslims cannot have a friendship with an infidel and can/may/must lie, cheat, steal and kill infidels to further Islam. If there is ever a conflict in verses of the Quran always take the more recent verse; all the peaceful versions are at the beginning and covered over by the jihad mentality is the later more recent verses. Look up the McCarran Walters Act 1952, Islam is unconstitutional Article IV Section 4.