Conquests and Rents

'Why are Muslim-majority societies so often plagued by poverty, tyranny, and war? In this remarkable book, Faisal Ahmed offers a fresh answer to this age-old question. Synthesizing large and diverse bodies of scholarship and disparate data sources, he shows how historical legacies and natural endowments together determine the fate of nations. The result is one of the most important works on the political economy of the Muslim world to appear in many years.' Tarek Masoud, John F. Kennedy School of Government 'Faisal Ahmed presents us with an excellent overview of how the early Muslim conquests wound up saddling territories with an institutional panoply that would produce long-term stagnation. Full of both theoretical and empirical insight, this is a book that will be of great interest to anyone keen to understand the historical trajectory of the Middle East.' David Stasavage, author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy 'Conquests and Rents provides a fresh take on the question of why Muslim societies tend to be less democratic and more prone to violence. Rather than pinning the blame on Islam as a religion or a set of institutions, Ahmed highlights variation in historical development in Muslim-majority countries and the more temporally proximate effects of oil and foreign aid receipts. Based on rigorous analyses, the book makes an important intervention in ongoing debates about historical legacies and the 'resource curse.'' Melani Cammett, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University