Ideology, Society and the State in Post-Colonial Muslim Societies

Abstract

This essay will deal analytically with the relations between state, society and ideology in certain post-colonial Muslim societies. The emphasis will be comparative, with the aim of using comparison to shed light on each society and on the differences and similarities among them. For the purposes of this discussion ‘post-colonial’ is taken to begin with the Ataturk and Reza Shah regimes in Turkey and Iran, when important political and economic breaks were made with Western power, and to begin with the achievement of independence from colonialism in the other countries discussed. Hence there is a gap of twenty-five years or more between the two categories.