Abstract
The modern Muslim world is a pale shadow of its past. Islam’s spiritual and moral egalitarianism has not bolstered some of the key benefits of modernity—economic prosperity, democratic freedoms and advancement of knowledge—in the Muslim world. On the contrary, an astute observer would have little difficulty in assembling volumes of data to demonstrate the acute deficits of development, freedom and knowledge in the Muslim world. This has given rise to contentious debate about the causes of these deficits. This chapter examines some of these debates and explanations of the causes of development, freedom and knowledge deficits in some detail and discusses explanatory frameworks that may account for them.
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Hassan, R. (2019). Political and Social Changes in the Muslim World with Special Reference to Development, Knowledge and Freedom Deficits. In: Mansouri, F., Keskin, Z. (eds) Contesting the Theological Foundations of Islamism and Violent Extremism. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02719-3_6
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