Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Suppose there are two lines on a graph, close together and moving in thesame general direction and that at one point one of them begins to divergefrom the other. After some time the gap between them will have widenedvery considerably. This simple image would command general agreementas an illustration of the different paths taken by Western and MiddleEastern or Islamic civilizations in the course of the last thousand years.
1 Hodgson, , vol. 2, p. 3.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 11.
3 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 180.
4 Ibid., vol. 3, pp 46–133; Hodgson quite rightly draws attention to the “Arabist” bias ofWestern Orientalists which makes them equate “Middle Eastern” or “Islamic” civilizationwith “Arab.” Needless to say, this particular bias is shared by the Arabs themselves, whotend to think that after about 1200 A.D. the Middle East entered into a prolonged decline.Perfectly correctly, Hodgson stresses the immense importance of the Persian and Turkishcontributions from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. This fact inevitably com-plicates the analysis in this paper, since Europe has to be compared and contrasted with tworather different entities, the “Arab” world of the seventh to twelfth centuries and the “Iranian-Ottoman” world of the eleventh to eighteenth centuries.
Since both Europe and the Middle East consisted of regions with vastly different degreesof development, throughout this essay comparison has been between best and best, thehighest points in the Middle East being compared to the corresponding ones in Europe.
5 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 571; see also 3, p. 176.
6 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 182; italics in original.
7 As Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, 1954–) has reminded us, China's contribution to technology and science has been immense. Theargument developed in this paper is not intended to apply to it.Google Scholar
8 “The Expansion of Technology, ” in Cipolla, Carlo M. (ed.). The Fontāna Economic History of Europe (London, 1972) vol. l, p. 144;Google Scholar see also White, Lynn, Medieval Technologyand Social Change (Oxford, 1965);Google ScholarSinger, Charles (ed.), A History of Technology (Oxford, 1956, 1957), vols. 2 and 3;Google ScholarDaumas, Maurice (ed.), Histoire générate des techniques (Paris.1962, 1965), vols. 1 and 2; and the Cambridge Economic History of Europe (hereafter citedas CEHE), vols. 1–t.Google Scholar
9 Noettes, Lefebvre des, La force motrice animale a travers les ages (Paris, 1924).Google Scholar
10 Watson, And rew, “The Arab Agricultural Revolution and its Diffusion, ” Journal ofEconomic History, vol. 34, 1974, pp. 8–35. and a forthcoming book by the same author;Watson points out, however, that the Europeans were rather slow in adopting many of thesecrops.Google Scholar
11 Slicher van Bath, B. H., Yield Ratios, 1810–1820 (Wageningen, 1963), p. 16 ff.Google Scholar
12 Issawi, Charles, Economic History of the Middle East 1800–1914 (Chicago, 1966), p. 377Google Scholar; Issawi, Charles, Economic History of Turkey, 1800–1914 (Chicago, 1980), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar
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17 Ubbelohde, A. R., Man and Energy (London, 1963) pp. 50–51.Google Scholar Tower windmills, which gradually replaced post windmills in Europe, were much more powerful. The Edin-burgh Museum has a huge waterwheel built in 1826 and used until 1965 for barley milling, cotton spinning and ragbreaking for paper. It had a capacity of up to 150 horsepower. Onthe other hand, windmills seem to have disappeared at an early date in the Middle East, and al-Jabarti mentions the ones put up by the French in Cairo in 1798–1799 as an unfamiliarphenomeon, ‘al-Jabarti, Abd al-Rahmān, ‘ajāib al athār ftal-tarajim wa al-akhbār (Beirut, 1978), vol. 2, p. 231.Google Scholar Earlier some seven or eight windmills had been set up in Alexand ria by Europeans. Girard, P. S., cited in Issawi, Economic History of the Middle East, op. cit., p. 377.Google ScholarAl-Jabarti, also mentions wheelbarrows as something unfamiliar. op. cit., vol. 2, p. 232.Google Scholar
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23 At this point it might be of interest to speculate on whether the technological advancesof the Middle East and Europe were in any way connected with their population trends. TheArab Agricultural Revolution of the seventh to eleventh centuries may well have beenstimulated by, and certainly made possible an appreciable growth in, population, and so wasthe corresponding European upsurge. The Black Death drastically reduced the populationsof both regions, but recovery came much earlier in Europe than in the Ottoman Empire; asfor the Arab countries, no long term upward trend seems discernible in them until thenineteenth century. It is therefore possible that Europe's greater technological inventive–ness may have owed something to its population pressure. See Issawi, Charles, “Area and Population of the Arab Empire: an Essay in Speculation, ” in Udovitch, A. L. (ed.), Land, Population and Society (in press).Google Scholar
24 Quoted in Retti, Ladislao, The Unknown Leonardo (New York, 1974), p. 6. This book, based on two notebooks discovered in Madrid in 1965, gives an idea of the breadth and depth of Leonardo's observations.Google Scholar
25 Permission was given to print books in Hebrew, Greek and Western scripts, and many were produced.
26 See Nashaat, M. A.. “Ibn Khaldun, Pioneer Economist, ” L'Egypte Contemporaine, vol. 38, 1944;Google ScholarIssawi, Charles, An Arab Philosophy of History (London, 1950),Google Scholar introductionand chs. 3 and 4; Boulakia, Jean David, “Ibn Khaldun, a Fourteenth Century Economist, “ Journal of Political Economy, vol. 79, no. 5 (09.–10. 1971).Google Scholar
27 Ed. Gamal al-Shayyal (Cairo, 1940).
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32 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 316, 320, 363–64, 385, 387, 399, 416.
33 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 179–287.
34 Ibid., vol. 2, 193, 196–97, 209–10, 216–18, 231–32, 246, 249.
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41 The connection was clearly grasped by Sir William Petty, who has been called by Marx “The founder of political economy“. In his Political Arithmetic, written probably in 1672, he says, “Instead of using only comparative and superlative Words and intellectualArguments, I have taken the course … to express myself in terms of Number, Weight or Measure.” Quoted in Roll, Eric, A History of Economic Thought (London, 1961), p. 100.Google Scholar
42 Of course this argument from silence is by no means conclusive. The fact that nodocuments have survived does not prove that they did not exist. But in a society whoseliterary output was so enormous and those historians were so numerous and prolific and often close to official circles, it is difficult to believe that if significant information on suchmatters as population or production or foreign trade had existed, some of it would not havebeen picked up by scholars like Ibn Khaldūn, al-Maqrfzi or al-Qalqashand f. On thequestions that did interest medieval Middle Eastern governments, taxation and the army, much information and quite a few figures are available. A clear idea of the extent and limitations of economic data available for what was the most advanced and most tightlygoverned Middle Eastern country is given by Rable, Hassanein, The Financial System ofEgypt A. H. 564–741/A.D. 1169–1341 (London, 1972); see especially chapter 1, “A CriticalSurvey of Sources.”Google Scholar
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45 Ibid., pp. 255–65.
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48 Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., sv. “Karimi.”
49 The most detailed study is that of Raymond, And rè, Artisans et Commerçants au Caire, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1974) covering the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: it brings outvery clearly the stagnation, or even retrogression, of the hand icrafts and the low income and status of the craftsmen (pp. 206–42). The merchants were much more prosperous and werelinked by marriage and partnerships not only among themselves (pp. 411–15)Google Scholar and with the'ulamsi (pp. 423–24) but also with the Janissaries (pp. 587–808. But this did not lead to thefostering of trade or promotion of commercial interests: “Les maitres de 1'Egypte sebornerent en general a en exploiter au jour le jour les ressources sans paraitre soupconnerl'interet qu'il pouvait y avoir a en favoriser le developpement“ (p. 710). Some of thesixteenth century pashas built bazaars, but this soon stopped. The Ocaks of the Janissariesoffered the merchants some protection, while greatly exploiting them, but by the eighteenthcentury power had passed to the Beys, whose extortion was unaccompanied by anyprotection or other benefits (pp. 783–85). For a different interpretation, see Marsot, Afaf Lutfial-Sayyid, “The Political and Economic Functions of the ‘ulamā’ in the 18thCentury, ” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 26, pp. 2–3,Google Scholar and Gran, Peter, Islamic Roots of Capitalism, Egypt 1760–1840 (Austin, Texas, 1979); I amimpressed, but not convinced, by their arguments.Google Scholar
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