About the Author

Carol Fuller was born in a small town in Wyoming, where, she says, "I acquired a respect for personal independence. This attitude has been a guide in my study in comparing Muslim and Western treatment of productive property."

She published a 200-page book in 1999 called A Slice of American History, 1623 to 1956, which includes history of early Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, the Civil War, and Minnesota using the stories of a family as they moved westward. She is the author of a biography of Stanley L. Myre, which was included in the book, Greybull.

Carol has been active in the Minnesota Mental Health Association (vice-president) and the League of Women Voters (chair of the Leagues of the Metropolitan Area), and in developing support for the education of primary physicians. 

About the Sources

The Muslim Economic Trap is a journey through a variety of books and articles by recognized authorities, journalists, and commentators on diverse aspects of Islam. 

BOOKS

Albert Hourani, associated with St. Anthony’s College of Oxford, authored the tremendous study, History of the Arab Peoples,1992, now is owned by Belknap of Harvard University Press.  He died in 1993.

The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World, 1994, edited by Francis Robinson, a beautiful book that includes many aspects of Islam.

William Montgomery Watt’s Muhammad at Mecca and Muhammad at Madina, both published in the 1950s by Clarendon Press at Oxford.  Watt was a great pioneer scholar.

The Koran.  (Qur’an)  The author read large sections of the Qur’an with an eye for the economic implications.

Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horseback, Cambridge University Press, 1980.  A noted scholar and prolific writer, she now is at the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study.

Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, Historial Roots, 1992, published by Yale University Press.  A Muslim, she is Professor of Women’s Studies and Religion at Harvard Divinity School.

Tariq Ali The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, 2002.  He is editor of “New Left Review” in London and also is a film maker.  The title refers to both Islamic fundamentalism and religious or “neocom” fundamentalism in the West.

Mohammas Arkoun, Rethinking Islam, Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, translated from the French and edited by Robert D. Lee, 1994, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, What’s Right with Islam, 2004, published by Harper-San Francisco.

Frederick A. Huyak, The Road to Serfdom, 50^th anniversary edition, 1994, Chicago University Press.  The book was written in the 1940s from his observations of the decline of economies and freedom under Communism.

Hernando De Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else, 2000, New York Basic Books.  De Soto, a former Peruvian official fighting the Shining Path, is internationally known for promoting the legal registration of land thus bringing it into the capitalist system.

Richard Pipes is the Baird Research Professor of History at Harvard.  His fascinating book, Freedom and Property, 1999, Vintage Books, clearly links private ownership of productive property to individual freedom.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, Islamic Fundamentalism, 1993, published by People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in Paris.  Printed by Seven Locks Press, D.C. with a foreword by Georgie Anne Geyer.  The Mojahedin is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. government, a classification being considered for removal, especially since Great Britain his done so.

Elizabeth Sanasarian, Religious Minorities in Iran, 2000 published by Cambridge University Press.  She is Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California.

Daniel Pipes, Slave Soldiers and Islam: the Genesis of a Military System, published in1981 by Yale University Press.  He has taught at Harvard and the University of Chicago and founded the Middle East Forum.

Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam, 2003, published by Modern Library of Random House.  He is regarded as the dean of Islamic studies in the United States.

Kenneth W. Morgan, editor, Islam, the Straight Path, Islam Interpreted by Muslims, 1958, published by Ronald Press Company.

Muhammad Najatullah Siddiqi, The Role of the State in the Economy, an Islamic Perspective, published by the Islamic Foundation of the United Kingdom in 1996.

Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridgement of Volumes VII–X  by Somervell, published by the Oxford University Press in1957.  The chapter entitled “Human Affairs and Laws of Nature,” explains Toynbee’s belief that Islam inherits the civilization that preceded the Greco-Roman civilization.

R. H. Major, M.D., Classic Descriptions of Disease, 1945 (Charles C. Thomas)

Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Islam, 1993, Random House

Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Saud from Tradition to Terror, 2002,  New York Doubleday.

Houston Smith, Islam, A Concise Introduction to Islam, 2003, Random House

Bender, D. L. and Bruno, Leone, editors, Islam: Opposing Viewpoints, 2001, Greenhouse Press, San Diego

THE INTERNET, TV, AND COMPUTER DISKS

Heritage Foundation, Index of Economic Freedom for years 2003, 2004 and 2005, published by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal.  Ratings allow comparisons of countries of the world.

Donner, Fred, The Early Arab Conquests, 1981, is from Princeton University Press.  This was found on the Fordham University website, pages 251 on.   Donner is associated with the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

CIA World Fact Book.  Population and unemployment statistics.

United Nations, Arab Human Development Report, October 2003

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division,  Population Action International, “World of Difference.” Their statistics are based on 1998 data from the U.N., WHO, and World Bank.

Bulliet, Richard V., Patricians of Nishapur: a study in medieval Islamic history, published in 1972 in Cambridge, MA, on the internet site of the University of Minnesota Library

Al-Faisal, Saud, interview by Leskey Stahl, “Saudi Schools Teaching Hate?”, 60 Minutes CBSNEWS.com, 9/6/2002

Atlantic online, Lester, Toby, “What is the Koran?”

Microsoft Encarta, 1998. “Islamic World” by Robert Erwin, “Ottoman Empire” by Norman Iyzkowitz, and  “St. Thomas Aquinas”

ARTICLES

American Heritage, Peters, Ralph, “The Shah Always Falls”, interview with F. Smoler, March 2003

Economist

“Could Yemen’s calm be threatened?” 2/16/2002

“Egypt’s 50th anniversary,” 7/27 /2002

“Self-Doomed to Failure”, 7/6/2002.  (On the Arab Development Report)

“The economist versus the terrorist: Hernando de Soto believes that capitalism can defeat terrorism”, 2/1/2003

“Time Travelers, a Survey of the Gulf”, 3/23/2002

“Women in Iran”, 10/18/2003

“Self-doomed to failure”, 7/6/2002 on the “Arab Development Report”

Book review of Gilles Kepel’s Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, Harvard University Press,  June 2002

Forbes

Forbes, Steve, “Mideast Miracle?” 2/16/2004

Johnson, Paul, “Want to Prosper? Then Be Tolerant” (Current Events) 6/21/2004

Klebnikov, Paul, “Iran, the Millionaire Clerics Who Run the Nuclear Menace,” 7/21/2003.  (Subtitle: “Millionaire Mullahs: a nuclear threat to the rest of the world, Iran is robbing its own people of prosperity.  But the men at the top are getting extremely rich.”)

Fortune, Jerry, Useem, “Banking on Allah,” 6/10/2002

Liberty, “Khomeini’s Dream of an Islamic Republic”, July-August 1979

Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, Halevi, Yossi Klein, “Tolerant Muslims must confront their religion’s more problematic tenets,” 9/18/2001

New York Times, MacFarquhar, Neil, “Saudi Blast Kills at Least Four,”4/21/2003

New York Review of Books, G. S. Wood, “Inventing American Capitalism,” 6/9/1994,

St. Paul Pioneer Press

Brooks, Peter, “Saudis are paying the price for appeasing terrorists,” 5/26/2003

“Economic Outlook Bleak for Arab Countries,” 12/19/2002

Bender, Brian, “U.S. forces hunt militants in Algeria,” from Boston Globe, 3/11/2004

Kessler, Glenn, “U.S. criticizes Saudi Arabia for trafficking in humans,” from Washington Post, 6/4/2005

Milani, Abbas and McFaul, Michael, “Negotiate, but support Iran’s democrats,” 6/25/2006

Science, Gonzales, Cristina, book review of  D.N. Livingstone’s  Putting Science in its Place, 12/5/2003

U.S. News and World Report

Zuckerman, M.B., “Looking evil right in the eye,” 19/26/2004

Barone, Michael, “Our enemies the Saudis,” 6/3/2002

Kaplan, David E., “Saudi Connection: How billions in oil money spawned a global terror network,” 12/15/2003

Wall Street Journal

Lead Editorial, 10/30/2001; Lead Editorial, 8/16/2002;  Editorial, “Carnage in Jakarta”,  8/6/2003;  Editorial, “What’s Iran Up To?” 7/1/2004

Wall Street Journal

Asghar, Robert, “Islam’s Silent Majority,” 7/9/2002

Barrett, Paul M., “A Student Journeys into a Secret Circle of Extremism: Muslim Movement Founded in Egypt Sent Tentacles to University in Knoxville,” 2/23/200

Crawford D. and Johnson, I, “German Muslim’s Radical Path Was Paved by Saudis,” 2/22/2003

Crawford, David & Johnson, Ian, “Saudi Funds Tied to Extremism in Europe,” January 2004

Gonzales, Michael, “Vive Le Checkbook,” 11/24/2003

Graham, Franklin, letter, “My View of Islam,” 11/25/2001

    Response -- Ravitch, Norman, letter, “Abrahamic Intolerance,” 12/10/2002

Gold, Dore, “The Kingdom of Incitement.”

Johnson, Ian, “Muslim Extremism Perplexes Germany on Eve of Elections: Nazi History Inhibits Debate about Immigrants Living on Dole, Cheering Jihad,” 9/20/2002

Haqqani, Husain, “Where’s the Muslim Debate?” 5/20/2003

Kramer, Martin, “Terrorism, What terrorism?” 11/15/2001.  Calls Middle East studies in American universities a ‘sick discipline.

Naih, Bautam, “As Tunisia Wins Population Battle Others See a Model,” 7/2/2003

Leggett, Karby, “Mideast Democracy: One Violent Group Finds It Works Fine,” 7/10/2006

Moffett, Matt, “Bario Study Links Land Ownership to Better Life,” 11/9/2005, page 1

O’Grady, Mary Anastasia, editorial, “World Bank Researchers Find Truth, But to What End?” 9/17/2004.  A discussion of Doing Business in 2005 by the World Bank.

Pope, Hugh, “Saudis Try New Way to Fuel Economy: Going to Work,” 4/1/2004

Simpson, Glenn R., “Terror Probe Follows the Money,” 4/2/2004

Solomon, Jay, “U.S. Targets Hezbollah Funds,”  4/24/2006

Spindle, Bill, “Behind Rise of Iran’s President, A Populist Economic Agenda,” 6/22/2006

Steele, Shelby, “Life and Death,” 8/22/2006

Waldman, Peter, “Vali Nasr Says Shiite Revival Is Met by Sunni Backlash; Resurgent Iran Leads the Way,” 8/04/2006

PERSONAL COMMUNICATION