The Muslim World

This book owes its origin to a major international conference held inApril by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists at Iowa State Universityin April 1983. The papers cover "a wide range of topics to match the widerange of crises in which the Muslim world finds itself." It includes forty-sixillustrative maps and figures and twenty-six tables. which make the texts moremeaningful.In recent times, the issues of Third World development and technologytransfer have stirred much controversy, resulting in a polarization of views.On one hand is the Third/Muslim World view that the so-called transfer oftechnology, whether from the capitalist or communist countries, iscounterproductive and exploitive, generating a client/dependency relationship.On the other hand, the donors feel that their "technological giveaways" promote"interdependence, collective self-reliance, and mutual interest." Between thesetwo extremes lies Muslim resurgence and Islamic revivalism, with Islam asa sociopolitical force providing its own ideological and institutional solutionsto the issues of development and technology transfer. The emphasis is onconscientious "value-patterned" socioeconomic development. Iowa StateUniversity's 1983 Conference and the present book focus on this motivatingtheme. They advocate alternate development strategies which are basicallyIslamic in spirit, substance, and system.In section 1 of the book, trends and issues typical of the Muslim worldare evaluated, specifically with reference to Pakistan. The first paper is acomparatively short study of coloniaJism (capitalist and communist) vis-avisthe Muslim world. The remedial recipe is an Islamic DevelopmentPolicy/Strategy. The second paper discusses the development dilemma of theIslamic countries, in the light of Islanuc values. The third author emphasizesthat Islamic development is holistic, aiming at the moral man in a moralsociety. Taken together, these first three papers form a contextual frameworkfor specific area case studies analyzing the influence of alien aid and alienatingdevelopment strategies ...