Timur Kuran: “The Tradition of Islamic Waqfs Had a Role in the Underdevelopment of the Middle East” The memorial lecture of this year’s Merih Celasun Memorial Day event was given by Prof. Timur Kuran.
The memorial lecture of this year’s Merih Celasun Memorial Day event was given by Prof. Timur Kuran.
ANKARA – The third Memorial Day TEPAV in honor of the memory of Professor Merih Celasun was held on Monday, 27 May 2013. This year’s memorial lecture was delivered by a renowned academic, Professor Timur Kuran, who delivered a presentation titled “Institutional Roots of Authoritarian Rule in the Middle East: Political Legacies of the Islamic Waqf.” Winners of the TEPAV 2012 Merih Celasun Award and 2012 Merih Celasun Family Award also were announced during the ceremonies.
“I recall his advice in tough times”
The event started with the opening address by TEPAV Director Güven Sak. This year’s lecturer, Timur Kuran of Duke University, started his speech with an anecdote about Merih Celasun, whom he had met as an undergraduate student. Noting that he had always been impressed by Celasun’s optimism, he said, “I was writing my undergraduate dissertation. Also I was an assistant on a project about the income distribution in Turkey. I visited Ankara for data collection. I spent an entire day at the Turkish Statistical Institute, but went away empty handed. I saw Professor Celasun that day and complained. He said, ‘Don’t worry. You can visit the Institute a couple of times and get the data in a day or two. The data you are looking for was not even collected a decade ago.’ Just as he said, I obtained the data in a couple of days. He always saw the glass as half full. I still recall his advice in tough times.”
Continuing with his presentation, Kuran stated that the legacy of the Islamic waqfs, which were transformed from mechanisms to provide social services into mechanisms that extended nepotism and corruption, had to be scrutinized to identify the roots of the political issues of the Middle East. Turkey differed from the rest of the Islamic world thanks to the efforts of the Ottomans to bring some level of flexibility to the system. He added that it was no paradox that the waqf system had been dismantled by modernizers in the nineteenth century while the modern waqf system, he suggested, was an agent of modernization and democratization.
Waqfs did not have political weight despite their economic significance
The title of Professor Kuran’s memorial speech was “Institutional Roots of Authoritarian Rule in the Middle East: Political Legacies of the Islamic Waqf.” Giving brief information about the waqfs in the Middle East and organizations that serve the function of waqf in Europe, Kuran stressed the failure of the waqfs to develop political leadership, and their lack of bargaining and coalition-forming skills. He stated that the function of waqfs was limited to passing down assets rather than balancing power and contributing to democratization.
Emphasizing that these impediments and the consequent corruption gave hints about the political underdevelopment in the Middle East, Kuran stated that social norms supporting these institutions had prevailed. From this perspective, he cited Syria as a country with no experience of democracy and has been unable to form coalitions. Saying that the waqf had once controlled an important part of the economy, but made no contribution to balances, he stressed that in Europe, guilds, universities, churches, and charities as parts of civil society have balanced the power and facilitated the transition to democracy.
Please click here for the video of Timur Kuran's speech.
Two awards in the name of Professor Celasun
Following Kuran’s lecture and the question and answer session, the awards ceremony was held. The TEPAV 2012 Merih Celasun Award was presented to the authors of an article titled “The Effects of Compulsory Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey,” by Murat G. Kırdar and Meltem Dayıoğlu of Middle East Technical University and İsmet Koç of Hacettepe University. The 2012 Celasun Family Award was given to a study titled “Growth and Demography in Turkey: Economic History vs. Pro-Natalist Rhetoric” by M. Aykut Attar of Hacettepe University. The winners were presented their awards during a ceremony. The competition for the 2012 awards was announced last year with the theme “demographic trends in Turkey and economic repercussions.”
The event ended after the lunch and cocktail reception. The Memorial Day event, as in previous years, was attended by students and friends of Professor Celasun, including prominent academics, and was open to everyone interested in the Turkish economy.
