PLEASE NOTE LOCATION
Law & Economics Workshop series
presents
Timur Kuran
Duke University
The Rule of Law in Islamic Thought and Practice:
A Historical Perspective
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
12:30 – 2:00
Flavelle Dining Room
78 Queen’s Park
The rule of law entails government accountability, equal access to justice and the political process, efficient judicial and political systems, clear laws, generally stable laws, and the protection of fundamental human rights. This paper explores whether Islamic law conforms to these principles in theory and in practice. Three conclusions are reached. First, various early Islamic institutions were meant, in some respect, to serve one or more of these principles. Second, the institutions in question lost effectiveness over time. Finally, the relevant Islamic institutions are now generally out of date.
Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science, and Gorter Family Professor in Islam and the Social Sciences at Duke University. His teaching and research draw on multiple disciplines, including economics, political science, history, and legal studies. He has written extensively on the evolution of preferences and institutions, with contributions to the study of hidden preferences, the unpredictability of social revolutions, the dynamics of ethnic conflict, perceptions of discrimination, and the evolution of morality. His best known theoretical work is Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Harvard University Press), which deals with the repercussions of being dishonest about what one knows and wants. Since its original publication in 1995, this book has appeared also in German, Swedish, Turkish, and Chinese. Kuran has also written on Islam and the Middle East, with an initial focus on contemporary attempts to restructure economies according to Islamic teachings. Several of his essays on this topic are included in Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Princeton University Press). Since the mid-1990s he has turned his attention to the conundrum of why the Middle East, which once had a high standard of living by global standards, subsequently fell behind in various realms, including economic production, organizational capability, technological creativity, democratization, and military strength. He is at work on books and articles on this general subject. His thesis is that the economic and educational institutions of Islam, though well-suited to the era in which they emerged, were poorly suited to a dynamic industrial economy. These institutions fostered social equilibria that reduced the likelihood of modern capitalism emerging from within Islamic civilization. His recent papers have identified obstacles involving inheritance practices, contract law, procedures of the courts, the absence of corporations, the financial system, and the delivery of social services.
A light lunch will be provided.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
