Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Winners and Losers in Nation-Building in the Post-Ottoman Middle East -- 2. Chaos in Dar'ul Islam After the Ottomans: The Modern Middle East -- 3. Recent Scholarship on the End of Ottomans and the Making of the Modern Middle East -- 4. The Roots of Islamic Underdevelopment: From Mercantilism to Imperialism -- 5. The Elusive Quest for the Islamic Social Contract: The Contest Between Nationalism and Imperialism -- 6. The Making of the Modern Middle East: Western Invasion, the Sykes-Picot Legacy, Failed States and Terrorism -- 7. The New Silk Route: Long-Term Revival of the Muslim World? -- 8. Europe, Turkey, and Islam: From Crusades to Inter-Faith Cooperation -- 9. The Muslim Refugee Crisis and Moral Failure -- 10. Why the Arab World Never Produced a Democratic Leader? -- 11. Democracy, Arabs, and Islamic Revival? -- 12. A Summing Up -- 13. Postscript on Ukraine War -- Index.

"Exploring themes of identity and development in the post-Ottoman Arab world, this book updates the author's earlier Islamic Identity and Development (Routledge, 1990) to analyse the root causes of chaos, civil war, and conflict in the Islamic Core today. Adopting a neo-Ottomanist framework, and using the latest scholarship on the Middle East, the author traces the historical development of the current crisis to the First World War, when the West instigated invasions, coup d'états, civil and proxy wars. It is argued that Western powers have facilitated the dispossession of the Arab people in their overarching aim to gain control of the oil fields. A range of historical case-studies are provided as evidence, from the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement to the creation of Israel and the displacement of Islamic refugees. Individual nations are also analysed, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt. Ultimately, the author suggests that artificial countries and unsustainable frontiers are the root causes of the Islamic crisis. However, a realistic (and long-term) solution may lie in the evolution of a new Silk Route Economy. This book will appeal to graduate-level students in political economy, area studies, international affairs, and Middle East studies generally"-- Provided by publisher.