Ahmet T. Kuru is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. He is the author of the award-winning Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge, 2009) and co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (2012). His works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, and Turkish.

• Introduction; Part I. Present: 1. Violence and peace; 2. Authoritarianism and democracy; 3. Socio-economic underdevelopment and development; Part II. History: 4. Progress: scholars and merchants (seventh to eleventh centuries); 5. Crisis: the invaders (twelfth to fourteenth centuries); 6. Power: three Muslim empires (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries); 7. Collapse: Western colonialism and Muslim reformists (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries); Conclusion.

'In these pages can be found a grand solution to a grand problem - nothing less than The Islam Question, that is, why one religion is prone to violence, authoritarianism, and economic underdevelopment. Kuru sets out to refute the two most publicly prominent positions on this question, essentialism and post-colonialism, by unearthing centuries of political and economic development in Islam and discovering that its contemporary problems result from shifts in religious and political authority of many centuries past. In this courageous and compelling piece of scholarship, Kuru does for religion what great historical sociologists like Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol did for democracy, dictatorship, and social revolution.' Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame

Ahmet T. Kuru is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. He is the author of the award-winning Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge, 2009) and co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (2012). His works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, and Turkish.

• Introduction; Part I. Present: 1. Violence and peace; 2. Authoritarianism and democracy; 3. Socio-economic underdevelopment and development; Part II. History: 4. Progress: scholars and merchants (seventh to eleventh centuries); 5. Crisis: the invaders (twelfth to fourteenth centuries); 6. Power: three Muslim empires (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries); 7. Collapse: Western colonialism and Muslim reformists (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries); Conclusion.

'In these pages can be found a grand solution to a grand problem - nothing less than The Islam Question, that is, why one religion is prone to violence, authoritarianism, and economic underdevelopment. Kuru sets out to refute the two most publicly prominent positions on this question, essentialism and post-colonialism, by unearthing centuries of political and economic development in Islam and discovering that its contemporary problems result from shifts in religious and political authority of many centuries past. In this courageous and compelling piece of scholarship, Kuru does for religion what great historical sociologists like Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol did for democracy, dictatorship, and social revolution.' Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame

Ahmet T. Kuru is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. He is the author of the award-winning Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge, 2009) and co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (2012). His works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, and Turkish.

• Introduction; Part I. Present: 1. Violence and peace; 2. Authoritarianism and democracy; 3. Socio-economic underdevelopment and development; Part II. History: 4. Progress: scholars and merchants (seventh to eleventh centuries); 5. Crisis: the invaders (twelfth to fourteenth centuries); 6. Power: three Muslim empires (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries); 7. Collapse: Western colonialism and Muslim reformists (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries); Conclusion.

'In these pages can be found a grand solution to a grand problem - nothing less than The Islam Question, that is, why one religion is prone to violence, authoritarianism, and economic underdevelopment. Kuru sets out to refute the two most publicly prominent positions on this question, essentialism and post-colonialism, by unearthing centuries of political and economic development in Islam and discovering that its contemporary problems result from shifts in religious and political authority of many centuries past. In this courageous and compelling piece of scholarship, Kuru does for religion what great historical sociologists like Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol did for democracy, dictatorship, and social revolution.' Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame