Conflicts—Islam and Reconciliation

Abstract

At the outset, we must emphasize that many countries that profess Islam and are called Islamic are unjust, corrupt, and underdeveloped and are in fact not “Islamic” by any stretch of the imagination. Looking at an index of “Economic Islamicity,” or how closely the policies and achievements of countries reflect Islamic economic teachings, Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Norway, and Belgium round up the first ten; and Malaysia (33) and Kuwait (42) are the only two Muslim countries to make it into the top 50. ¹ In an “Overall Islamicity Index,” a measure that encompasses laws and governance, human and political rights, international relations, and economic factors, the rankings are much the same: New Zealand, Luxembourg, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands; and again only Malaysia (38) and Kuwait (48) make it into the top 50 from Muslim countries (Rehman and Askari, 2010).²