Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IN 1979 PAKISTAN TOOK SOME MAJOR STEPS to give its economy an Islamic character..." (more)
Key Phrases: zakat office, irrelevance thesis, disadvantage thesis, Golden Age, Middle East, Saudi Arabia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

" this timely book, one that just about anyone aiming to do business in the Islamic world should read". -- Jay Palmer, Barron's

[A] timely book, one that just about anyone aiming to do business in the Islamic world should read. -- Jay Palmer , Barron's

Review

[A] timely book, one that just about anyone aiming to do business in the Islamic world should read. . . . A good read.
(Jay Palmer Barron's )

What is Islamic banking? What is Islamic economics? Islam and Mammon . . . sets out the genesis of these ideas and criticizes, severely but still sympathetically, both the performance and the underlying logic of this Islamic approach to economic activity.
(L. Carl Brown Foreign Affairs )

[Kuran's] writing is lively, his arguments are cogent, and the scholarship is wide ranging. . . . [A] useful and understandable introduction to both the doctrines of Islamic economics and how they are related to economic behavior in predominantly Islamic nations.
(Frederic L. Pryor EH.NET )

The clear theme unifying these essays is that Islamic economics as such is not a genuine answer to the world's economic problems, but an 'invented tradition' that serves as an adjunct to the broader, anti-Western, Islamist (or Islamic fundamentalist) political and religious movement. . . . Timur Kuran's book makes this case all too clearly and eloquently.
(J. Barkley Rosser Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (April 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691115109
• ISBN-13: 978-0691115108
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #839,004 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars truly, truly necessary, August 30, 2005

By	Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews

While this book touches on the myriad ways in which Islam, when you get right down to it, is a recipe for poverty, its central focus is on the definitions, history, successes and failures, hypocrisies, and possibly viability of "Islamic economics."

In case you need to know: no, the man is certainly not hesitant to criticize Islam, Muslims, or the Koran and does so on numerous occasions. Always, though, respectfully and in a well-evidenced way. This is certainly not a book by someone trying to "sell you" Qur'anic economics.

Regarding the difficulty of the economics herein, a general reader could certainly handle it, as there are no graphs or tables to disconcert one. However, the thing is written in a formal academic style complete with extensive footnotes, so it's not quite for the lay reader either. In any case, although it is a thinnish book, I found that it required slow and careful reading.

Note that though the book was published in 2004, the individual chapters in every case were originally stand-alone essays (but all by the same guy) published individually (usually in journals) before that. Some well before that.

The author, by the way, is a secular Turk who has taught at Princeton.

I found the thing literately and clearly written, and VERY useful, considering there are not many books like it.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb scholarship, December 20, 2007

By	Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Paperback)

The central and most important point in this highly useful volume is that Islamic finance is an "invented tradition," which empowers Islamic radicals. Now, coming as it does from the University of Southern California King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought, that statement represents years of study, and a great deal of courage.

"Neither classical nor medieval Islamic civilization featured banks in the modern sense, let alone `Islamic' banks...," Kuran continues.

Western securities and banking regulators, legislators, bankers, money managers and securities lawyers, take note: Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna concocted the idea of Islamic banking in the 1920s to unite Muslims in one global Islamic nation (umma), to create a parallel financial system, and ultimately to help reestablish a global Islamic empire, subservient to shari'a law.

These and many other such facts are things that radical sheiks and "shari'a finance scholars" do not want readers to know. Which is why anyone even remotely interested in shari'a finance should purchase and read this book, and keep it on their desk. It's invaluable.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for Enlightened Citizens of Any Religion, February 23, 2009

By	Carol M. Fuller "C. Fuller, writer on Muslim ... (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Paperback)

The subject is "Islamic economics," a system which has the goal that all dealings be of equal benefit to all parties and, through the use of the "tax" for charity and inheritance law, there be a high degree of economic equality. Kuran examines all these issues seeing some advantages and the many quandaries that result. Importantly, in view of current problems and events, he explores the political significance of this type of economy in the lack of prosperity and the isolation of Muslims from the rest of the world.

In his exploration of why the Islamic economy has lagged Europe for several centuries he calls into use his work on preference falsification (See his "Private Truths, Public Lies") in the inability of the economy and its rulers to self-correct when the economy was sliding downhill.

Carol M Fuller