Re: Economics of Islam

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

Colin,
     I think the Lewis article is pretty good.  He
does not refer to "Islamic nations" as you imply
below, but to "Muslim nations."  The former are
those that impose a shari'a form of Islamic
law as for example in Iran.  Lewis is well aware
of such distinctions.
      He did not mention the reimposition of the Shah
or the shelling of Lebanon.  But he did agree that
the West had behaved in an imperialistic manner
toward both the Muslim and Arab worlds.
      Most of the discussion in the article you cited
is directed at ignorami on talk radio, not Lewis, a
great scholar of Islam, whatever Said might say.
Barkley Rosser
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Danby" <danbyc@xxxxxxx>
To: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: Economics of Islam


> > Here is an excellent article on the background of September Eleven:
> > "The Roots of Muslim Rage"  -- The Atlantic, September 1990:
> >
> >     http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm
>
> Bernard Lewis' work is deeply problematic.  I would not take it at face
> value.  You really need a sense of the debate over scholarship like
> Lewis' opened by Edward Said's 1978 book _Orientalism_.  Here's a
> webpage that gives a very quick alternative view,
> http://www.fair.org/extra/9507/islam.html but this is not something that
> can be dealt with in soundbites.
>
> >It is suggested that one source of the rage stems from the failure of
>
> A lot of different people in different places and different situations
> may be unhappy about different things for different reasons.  Reducing
> all of this to one category of "rage" is unhelpful.
>
> > the Islamic nations to develop economically.  Some of them have
>
> "the" Islamic nations?  What is an Islamic nation?  Which ones qualify?
> Are you really going to bracket Kuwait, Sudan, Turkey, and Indonesia?
> What are the relations between Islam as a religious tradition, its
> particular institutional presences in a particular place, states and
> national authorities, and "development"?  Note how all these questions
> of social analysis get short-circuited by this kind of reductionist
> framing.
>
> Best, Colin
>
>
>
>