Islamic World

At the peak of its power (the “peak” of the Islamic empire is usually considered to be during the Abbasid Dynasty , 750 A.D.-1258 A.D.) the Islamic empire represented the greatest military strength, reached a higher level of achievement in the arts and sciences than any other civilization, and was widely thought of as the economic center of the world. Its military power allowed it to invade Europe, Africa, China, and India simultaneously.2 The empire stretched as far east as present-day Indonesia, and as far west as the western border of Africa. Before the development of modern science, no civilization engaged so many scientists, produced as many scientific books, and provided as varied and sustained support for scientific activity.3 Indeed the remnants of its scientific achievements are still demonstrated by the very label we give our numerals: “Arabic.” And through the Silk Road and other commercial networks connecting it to Asia, Europe, and Africa, the empire was involved in the trade of a wide array of commodities while forming what was largely considered the greatest economic power of the world.4

While the religion itself continues to have one of the highest numbers of followers and is widely considered one of the fastest growing religions in the world,5 the Islamic empire has been shattered into various political entities that reflect little if any of the prior achievements of what is perhaps one of the greatest civilizations in history. The cause for the gradual degradation of this empire constitutes the subject of a vast number of scholarly debates and texts, and has accordingly resulted in a variety of competing theories. Some have used cultural explanation, and, for example, have argued that a lack of autonomy between social, cultural, and political institutions in Islam have precluded the religion from embracing modernization and progress in the same manner as other civilizations. Others have stayed clear from inherent cultural explanations, and have alternatively shown how objective criteria like social, political, or geographical aspects of regions have contributed to the gradual demise of an empire. For instance, one theory blamed much of the economic and political failure on colonial practices that encouraged the production of raw materials, but discouraged industrial development – resulting in a dependency for technology and final products that led to the impoverishment of the Muslim world.7 And of course a range of explanations between or even beyond the aforementioned types are theoretically possible, and undoubtedly implemented.

Causal relationships are typically weak forms of support due to the difficulty of proving correlation, yet they remain vitally important in this particular scenario beyond just the immediate sociopolitical consequences. The Islamic empire was once a paragon of achievement for civilizations, and it behooves any well-informed individual to understand and help reawaken this civilization to contribute to the world as it once had.

Prior Cultural Explanations

Cultural arguments have been propounded to support policies that find an overriding necessity for varying degrees of cultural or religious changes prior to any sustainable long- term economic development. These theories point to inherent characteristics in the Islamic culture that distinguish it from economically more successful countries.

Max Weber, the famous 19th and early 20th century father of sociology, and, to a much higher degree, his followers, argued that a particular form of rationality developed in Western countries as a direct product of protestant beliefs that was unlike that of any other culture. This form of rationality and “ethic” contributed to the rise of the spirit of capitalism, and the ability of the West to far outpace its eastern cultural and political counterparts in economic (and to some degree political) success.

Bernard Lewis, in his book, What Went Wrong?, argues that much of the failure of the Islamic empire is a direct product of its own cultural and social practices. The only way for the empire to rise once again to its greatness is to abandon certain practices that have inhibited its growth, and to reunite under a common endeavor to use the resources and talents of the present Muslim world. Abandoning certain social and cultural practices and reuniting involves the concomitant embracement of Western practices: “Today, for the time being, as Ataturk recognized and as Indian computer scientists and Japanese high-tech companies appreciate, the dominant civilization is Western, and Western standards therefore define modernity.”10 Lewis sees a cyclical nature of history in which the dominant civilization, which Lewis says was at one point Islamic but is at present Western, defines modernity, and the Islamic world can join modernity (and presumably progress economically) only through the acceptance and implementation of that fact.

Cultural explanations for the economic decline of the Islamic world lead to generalizations that require fundamental religious or cultural changes as overriding necessities for progress. Some authors, like Daniel Pipes, have thus argued that Westernization is a prerequisite for economic modernization in Islamic countries because some of the features of Islam, such as its restriction on usury, promotion of fasting, specific inheritance laws, and limitation of female participation in the work force are inherently opposed to necessary modern reforms.15 Along the same lines, but arguing for diametrically opposing results is the fundamentalists’ reactionary movement – an elimination of Western and other cultural practices that have tainted the purity of the religion is required in order to once again return to the glory days of Islam.

Resource Balance between Europe and the Middle East

For the first 900 years, from the birth of Islam to 1500AD, the Islamic world significantly expanded its physical territories. Since its beginning, however, the Islamic world was in continual competition with the Christian world for physical space and manpower. At the end, the Christian world came out ahead with the eventual demise of the Ottoman Empire. Chronicles of the Ottoman Empire’s decline many a time attribute the decline to cultural differences; Islam’s cultural practices inhibited technological advancement and ultimately allowed the Christian world to get ahead of its eastern competitors. Sachs, however, argues that in addition to the advantages Europe gained from the temperate climate zone, a comparison of resources between the Christian and Islamic worlds over time will demonstrate that a better explanation of the eventual decline of the Ottoman Empire may be simply because it lacked the human and material resources of Europe.

To facilitate a comparison of resources, it can be divided the period from Islam’s inception to the present time into four phases of competition: the Arabian expansion (632AD–1200AD); the Ottoman expansion (1200AD – 1500AD); European-Ottoman stalemate (1500AD – 1700AD); and the European expansion (1700AD – present). The divisions thus show the first 900 years of expansion of the Islamic world, a subsequent stalemate from 1500AD to 1700AD, and an eventual loss of economic and political power from 1700AD to the present.

Demographics, geopolitics, and the global economy, had more to do with the decline of Islamic world than cultural weaknesses. For the first 900 years, the Islamic world reaped huge economic gains from their physical location which placed them at the center of the world’s main trading routes. Gradually, however, sea routes were discovered and found to be far cheaper than the usual land routes that crossed the Middle East. The economy was thus significantly undermined as the Islamic world loss control of the trading routes.

Europe, in contrast, greatly benefited from the industrial revolution’s technological advances and its lands’ natural resources. The steam engine, which was introduced in the late 17th and early 18th century, proved to be particularly beneficial for Europe because of the relatively large amounts of coal deposits in comparison to those of the Islamic world. Additionally, the heavy and wheeled moldboard plow was introduced into Europe no earlier

than the sixth century allowed farming in Northern Europe, where it was never before possible.18 The introduction of the plow coupled with the temperate climates gave Europe an even greater advantage over food production. In addition to the coal deposits for use with the steam engine, Europe benefited from more timber and better transport through the access of water. Timber and water were for obvious reasons not as plentiful in the desert regions of the Islamic world.

Demographics were also in favor of Islam in the beginning, but that too was gradually lost to the rapidly growing population of Europe. In 800AD, the population of the Islamic world and Europe were approximately the same, with the former having a more urbanized population. Thus, in 800AD, while both had approximately 29 million people, the Islamic world had 13 of the world’s 40 largest (by population) cities, while Europe had only three cities. As figure 3 shows, Europe’s population began to rapidly increase in comparison with the rather stable growth of the Islamic world in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). By 1600AD, Europe boasted a population that was roughly three times the size of MENA. Similarly, by 1600AD, Europe had 11 of the 40 largest cities in the world, while the Islamic world in MENA had only eight.

While being in the middle of the known world brought huge economic rewards for the Islamic empire when the world’s main trading routes still went through the Middle East, it was geographically a difficult position to defend; the Middle East lacked the natural barriers of bodies of water or mountainous terrain, and continually lost economic and human resources while defending its territories. Up to 1580AD, the Ottoman Empire expanded its physical boundaries, but was subsequently weakened not only by the gradual loss of the world’s trading routes, but by a lack of resources when attacked from all fronts. The Ottomans were fighting the European powers in the Balkans, the Russian Empire in the Black Sea and the Caspian regions, and the Persians from the East. The Ottoman Empire was able to roughly maintain its boundaries up to 1683 when it failed in its siege of Vienna.

Author: J. D. Sachs