Poverty alleviation democracy and institutional reform in Islamic countries

Abstract

The relentless hostility and the ever widening cleft between the secularists and lslamists in Countries like Algeria and Turkey, has created a most difficult situation while one of the hostile camps believes in the total rejection of our traditional institutions, the other one wishes to return to the pristine origins. I would argue that both of these policies are wrong. What the Islamic countries need, is a complete re-ordering of the institutional matrix that would both meet, head on, the economic and social challenges imposed by the contemporary modem world, and also at the same time, be in harmony with the basic teachings of Islam.