Rule of Law and Balance of Power in Classical Islam
Noah Feldman Monday, 1 December 2008
Not only Western experts but the educated classes of the Muslim world have been astonished over the last quarter century at the rise of a political movement calling for the creation of Islamic states in majority-Muslim countries. That many governments in Muslim countries are badly in need of reform is not in doubt. Especially in the Middle East, dictatorships and monarchies have failed to bring economic prosperity, military dominance, or even basically legitimate government. But why has this sorry state of affairs not led to the emergence of domestic political movements seeking the creation of liberal democracy as we saw, for example, in Eastern Europe? What is different about the Muslim world?
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