Series Editor's Preface; Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Figures and Tables; Chapter 1 Introduction: Determining the Basis for Political Discourse for the Next Generation; What this Work Seeks to Actually Do; Islam and Governance-A Brief Overview of Last 20 Years; Carpe Diem!-Why Now is the Time for Scholars to Offer New Ideas; Going Back to Get to the Future; Plato, Aristotle, and Ancient Greek Scholarship; Case Studies and Application; References; Part I Historical Context and Theoretical Framework Chapter 2 The Trajectory of the Development of Islamic Thought-A Comparison Between Two Earlier and Two Later ScholarsIntroduction; Peripateticism Within the Early Islamic Philosophical Discourse; A Brief Look at Some of the Major Schools Kalām Within the Sunni Discourse; Al-Fārābī: The Second Teacher; Ibn Rushd: The Symbiosis of Reason and Faith; Orthodoxy and the Inward Turn Following 1258 CE; Ibn Taymiyyah: The Conservative Reformer of the Thirteenth Century; Mohammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhāb: An Eighteenth-Century Conservative Ḥanbalī Response to bid'ah in the Islamic Discourse; Conclusion Chapter 5 Considering Bureaucracy and Democracy in a Contemporary Islamic Governed StateIntroduction; Economic Development → Institutional Development → ElectoralCivil Rights; The Importance of a Modern and Efficient Bureaucracy; A Brief Overview of Contemporary Theoretical Approaches to Bureaucracy; The Role of Democracy and Civic Participation; Conclusion; References; Chapter 6 The Importance of Involving Women in the Political Apparatus of a Contemporary Islamic Governed State; Introduction-Tracing the Pathology of Reactionary Attitudes Toward Women Today in the Muslim World Women in Public Administration and Politics-The Key Missing Variable to Combat the Authoritarianism that Dominates Many Parts of the Muslim World Today?Education and Change; Conclusion; References; Chapter 7 The Importance of Economic Justice in a Contemporary Islamic Governed State; Economic Justice-A Two-Way Street; Ibn Khaldun on Basic Economic Principals; Islam as the Middle Path; Usury and Islam; Conclusion; References; Part II Case Studies in the Contemporary Muslim World; Chapter 8 The Case of Turkey: Soft Power and Economic Growth; Introduction

First, Joseph Kaminski surveys the historical context of the trajectory of Islamic thought, and offers a unique discursive framework for reconceptualizing an Islamic governed state that rejects secular Enlightenment liberalism and instead is heavily grounded in Ancient Greek ideals of politics and political leadership.