Hi,

Reading the book "Islam, Athoritarianism, and Underdevelopment" by Ahmet Kuru is recommended (not sure if you have already read this title).

During the Islamic Golden Age, while Muslims made significant advancements in mathematics and science, several factors limited the development of new products:

These factors contributed to a gap between scientific knowledge and practical application during this period.

@ Chuck Arize: Thank you, Chuck. Re:

1. Preservation: The Vatican did a lot of that, too. This was despite centuries of extreme political and economic instability. There was a lot of fragmentation of dukedoms, princely states etc. Despite that, throughout they kept up their research, drawing new lessons and conclusions from the knowledge that they gathered. All this help them achieve a level of preparedness for developing an industrial. I think your point no.2 (philosophical and theological constraintsI is the single, most likely candidate. The answers lie there. Do you have any specific thoughts, insights, on it?

@ Sajjad A: Thank you. I have ordered the book and look forward to reading it as soon I finish with my other readings. If you have gleaned any insights from the book, can you share them?

Dear Shad Moarif ,

Here is a excerpt from the book:

Why do Muslim-majority countries exhibit high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison to world averages? Ahmet T. Kuru criticizes explanations which point to Islam as the cause of this disparity, because Muslims were philosophically and socio-economically more developed than Western Europeans between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Nor was Western colonialism the cause: Muslims had already suffered political and socio-economic problems when colonization began. Kuru argues that Muslims had influential thinkers and merchants in their early history, when religious orthodoxy and military rule were prevalent in Europe. However, in the eleventh century, an alliance between orthodox Islamic scholars (the ulema) and military states began to emerge. This alliance gradually hindered intellectual and economic creativity by marginalizing intellectual and bourgeois classes in the Muslim world. This important study links its historical explanation to contemporary politics by showing that, to this day, ulema-state alliance still prevents creativity and competition in Muslim countries.