A persistent theme in the Qur’an commands Muslims ‘to establish a political order on earth for the sake of creating an egalitarian and just moral-social order’. According to Fazlur Rahman this is one of key intellectual messages of the Qur’an. Ernest Gellner in his seminal book Muslim Society boldly asserts that by various obvious criteria-universalism, scripuralism, spiritual egalitarianism, the extension of full participation in the sacred community, not to one, or some, but to all, and the rational systemization of social life-Islam is, of the three great Western monotheisms, the one closest to modernity. The modern Muslim world is a pale shadow of Gellner and Rahman’s characterization of Muslim society. Islam’s spiritual and moral egalitarianism has not bolstered some of the key benefits of modernity namely economic prosperity, democratic freedoms and advancement of knowledge in the Muslim world. An astute observer would have little difficulty in assembling volumes of data to demonstrate the acute development, freedom and knowledge deficits in the Muslim world. This has given rise to a contentious debate about the causes of these deficits. In this paper I will attempt to examine these deficits in some detail and discuss explanatory frameworks which may account for them.

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Riaz Hassan is Director of the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding.

© 2015. Keynote paper to be delivered at the 15th Annual International Conference on Islamic Studies on ‘Harmony in Diversity: Promoting Moderation and Preventing Conflicts in Socio-Religious Life’, to be held in Manado, Indonesia on 3-6 September 2015