The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East

[phk]

Timur Kuran is an important and highly underrated social scientist who has written a great deal on how "Islamic economics," as the formal movement is known, has not done Islamic economies any great favors.  It is precisely when he seems most critical of Islamic doctrines that he is doing the most repair work, by indicating another path forward. 

URL and first sample chapter of his new book here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9273.html

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[Tetro Kornbluth]

Ah, one of the many flaws of behavioralism: viewing components of human culture as discrete, symmetrically-analyzable parts which can be interchanged to achieve maximum efficiency.

[memphis]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

[phk]

Ah, one of the many flaws of behavioralism: viewing components of human culture as discrete, symmetrically-analyzable parts which can be interchanged to achieve maximum efficiency.

It actually says.

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[Tetro Kornbluth]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

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You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

[Gustaf]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

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You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

What is the myth? That you're not allowed to lend money at interest in islamic countries or that you cannot have a modern economy without it?

(of course, what happens with such a prohibition isn't actually that there are no interest payments. It's simply that you run lending in a less efficient and less transparent way)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The Myth is loaning without interest. Islamic banks (not to confused with "Islamic Banks") have been loaning with interest since iirc the 11th Century.

[memphis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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And your point is...?

[phk]

The Myth is loaning without interest. Islamic banks (not to confused with "Islamic Banks") have been loaning with interest since iirc the 11th Century.

Most of those bankers weren't Muslims. A lot of lenders in places like Pakistan and Indonesia are from minority communities such as Hindus and Christians. It helped drive rumors in Indonesia of the 3% Chinese minority owning 80% of the companies on the stock market.

"Islamic Banks" though find a way around it by charging various user fees anyway.

Beyond this, another obvious flaw in the legal system is business partnerships extinguishing upon the death of a member which doesn't occur elsewhere.

[phk]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

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You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

Than again, I'm seeing it mostly from a legal/policy point of view than cultural.

Lumping up all Muslims as a single culture (apart from whats directly said in the Quran) is probably a big overgeneralization.

 

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

Than again, I'm seeing it mostly from a legal/policy point of view than cultural.

Lumping up all Muslims as a single culture (apart from whats directly said in the Quran) is probably a big overgeneralization.

 

Of course you are correct in both posts. But you still, didn´t get that post, did you?

Let´s begin with the obvious: You are an Egyptian Peasant in, oh, the era just after the reign of Muhammed Ali. What is "Modernization"? And why is it good for you?

[memphis]

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And your point is...?

Hardly news that the Christians cherry pick the verses that suit their fancy. I'm sure they have some sort of mental gymnastics to explain this one.

[phk]

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And your point is...?

Hardly news that the Christians cherry pick the verses that suit their fancy. I'm sure they have some sort of mental gymnastics to explain this one.

The main difference between Christianity and Islam as far as anachronistic laws is concerned is that Christians by and large have discarded or o forgotten such laws, whereas many Muslims take such laws seriously.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Again, you are using all these terms like "development", "modernization" and "anachronism" (and for that matter "doctrine" and "laws") without ever actually really defining what they mean - and more importantly, how people in the various phases of history understood them.

[Gustaf]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

Than again, I'm seeing it mostly from a legal/policy point of view than cultural.

Lumping up all Muslims as a single culture (apart from whats directly said in the Quran) is probably a big overgeneralization.

 

Of course you are correct in both posts. But you still, didn´t get that post, did you?

Let´s begin with the obvious: You are an Egyptian Peasant in, oh, the era just after the reign of Muhammed Ali. What is "Modernization"? And why is it good for you?

I don't get it, so I'll just give you an answer:

Modernization is all of your kids surviving into adulthood. It is good for you because you care for your kids.

EDIT: question (completely serious one): is whatever point you're making with this equally applicable to a Swedish peasant in some era like the 13th century?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

Than again, I'm seeing it mostly from a legal/policy point of view than cultural.

Lumping up all Muslims as a single culture (apart from whats directly said in the Quran) is probably a big overgeneralization.

 

Of course you are correct in both posts. But you still, didn´t get that post, did you?

Let´s begin with the obvious: You are an Egyptian Peasant in, oh, the era just after the reign of Muhammed Ali. What is "Modernization"? And why is it good for you?

I don't get it, so I'll just give you an answer:

Modernization is all of your kids surviving into adulthood. It is good for you because you care for your kids.

EDIT: question (completely serious one): is whatever point you're making with this equally applicable to a Swedish peasant in some era like the 13th century?

First to answer your question: yes.

What I´m not arguing is that modernization (however we define it) is ´bad´. What I´m questioning is what exactly 19th Century Egyptian peasants would have thought of as ´modernization´(if indeed they could think about it all - which is highly unlikely). Would they have thought of it in terms of the definition you gave? (obvious blunt answer: no) I think to get this reference you might want to read up on the history of the period in the middle East.

[Gustaf]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

Than again, I'm seeing it mostly from a legal/policy point of view than cultural.

Lumping up all Muslims as a single culture (apart from whats directly said in the Quran) is probably a big overgeneralization.

 

Of course you are correct in both posts. But you still, didn´t get that post, did you?

Let´s begin with the obvious: You are an Egyptian Peasant in, oh, the era just after the reign of Muhammed Ali. What is "Modernization"? And why is it good for you?

I don't get it, so I'll just give you an answer:

Modernization is all of your kids surviving into adulthood. It is good for you because you care for your kids.

EDIT: question (completely serious one): is whatever point you're making with this equally applicable to a Swedish peasant in some era like the 13th century?

First to answer your question: yes.

What I´m not arguing is that modernization (however we define it) is ´bad´. What I´m questioning is what exactly 19th Century Egyptian peasants would have thought of as ´modernization´(if indeed they could think about it all - which is highly unlikely). Would they have thought of it in terms of the definition you gave? (obvious blunt answer: no) I think to get this reference you might want to read up on the history of the period in the middle East.

I still don't really get where that takes us.

The way I understand the argument presented in this thread it runs, simplified, somewhat like this:

1. Islamic society (Middleeastern, whatever you want to call it) was bad (I will use bad instead of non-modern, as referring to things I consider objectively bad such as high infant mortality rates)

2. Certain parts of that culture prevented it from becoming less bad and are responsible for those societies remaining more like they were then.

In that context, I don't follow your point. The reason I brought up the Swedish peasant is because Sweden obviously modernized anyway. I don't think anyone thinks that Egyptian peasants consciously kept their society archaic because they got off on making things bad. And I don't think anyone is arguing that they were idiots either. The whole point on islamic law holding back the middle east would presumably be that it prevented people from realizing what gains they could have from changing their society.

[phk]

Even than, people of all classes who would have been able to see a European visitor in Cairo or Istanbul in the 1750s and afterward would have noticed that these people have more material wealth than they do.

It could come in the form of things that are objectively good like Gustaf said as in low infant mortality as well as in things they have no use for like iPads.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It is pretty damn hard to have a modern economy in socieities that ban lending money at interest.

Myth FYI.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You totally didn´t understand that post, did you?

Than again, I'm seeing it mostly from a legal/policy point of view than cultural.

Lumping up all Muslims as a single culture (apart from whats directly said in the Quran) is probably a big overgeneralization.

 

Of course you are correct in both posts. But you still, didn´t get that post, did you?

Let´s begin with the obvious: You are an Egyptian Peasant in, oh, the era just after the reign of Muhammed Ali. What is "Modernization"? And why is it good for you?

I don't get it, so I'll just give you an answer:

Modernization is all of your kids surviving into adulthood. It is good for you because you care for your kids.

EDIT: question (completely serious one): is whatever point you're making with this equally applicable to a Swedish peasant in some era like the 13th century?

First to answer your question: yes.

What I´m not arguing is that modernization (however we define it) is ´bad´. What I´m questioning is what exactly 19th Century Egyptian peasants would have thought of as ´modernization´(if indeed they could think about it all - which is highly unlikely). Would they have thought of it in terms of the definition you gave? (obvious blunt answer: no) I think to get this reference you might want to read up on the history of the period in the middle East.

I still don't really get where that takes us.

The way I understand the argument presented in this thread it runs, simplified, somewhat like this:

1. Islamic society (Middleeastern, whatever you want to call it) was bad (I will use bad instead of non-modern, as referring to things I consider objectively bad such as high infant mortality rates)

2. Certain parts of that culture prevented it from becoming less bad and are responsible for those societies remaining more like they were then.

In that context, I don't follow your point. The reason I brought up the Swedish peasant is because Sweden obviously modernized anyway. I don't think anyone thinks that Egyptian peasants consciously kept their society archaic because they got off on making things bad. And I don't think anyone is arguing that they were idiots either. The whole point on islamic law holding back the middle east would presumably be that it prevented people from realizing what gains they could have from changing their society.

You are forgetting the obvious point I have been trying to make. "Modernization" and "Imperialism" go hand-in-hand when we speak of the "third world". In Egypt in the 1800s attempts to modernize the state (and "modernization" has nearly always ended up meaning strenghtening the power of the state or at least reconfiguring the economy to make it even less democratic than it was before) involved under European supervision the seizure of agricultural land from peasants to grow cotton for foreign currency which helped funded more 'modern' education systems and European culture - to a small group of urbanites but drove the peasantry into dependance. Egypt's was iirc Britain's second major source of cotton behind the US south during this period. The same applies anywhere there was a European 'modernizing' presence.

Pnd in places like Algeria where there were actual European colonists, the foreigners took the best land (after killing large parts of the population) for themselves. No doubt a fedaheyn in 1900 in Algeria was no doubt reassured that he was living in the most advanced part of North Africa - even though of course he had little access because he was more economically dependant than before and put in a deliberately economically inferior position of which he could not escape - and this is also considering that during this time the standard of living for Arabs actually did improve due to European medicines - Death rates and Infant Morality rates fell consistently throughout the age of Imperialism. But one can't measure life on Statistics alone. And the story of European Imperialism in the Middle East is the story - like everywhere else - of the destruction of social structures (many deeply conservative, yes but had the advantage of being rooted in the community and actually understanding it) and its replacement by 'foreign bodies' who held them in contempt and by local allies to the Europeans who often got fat over explotation and who benfitted from 'modernization' the most (this is a bit of a simplistic picture but not wholly inaccurate). Now in that context you might understand why 'modernization' might not totally catch on*?

* (Well, it did, later and for a while but it wasn't very successful and it's  a different story entirely).

Anyway as I have said before the real question of 'modernization' is not "why did X fail?" rather "why did western Europe succceed?" - such a small part of the world really. And I'm not hugely convinced by cod orientalist theories especially those invoking religion and religious texts, after all, why was the "Islamic world" (and here we mean the commercial cities o/c) more 'advanced' than Europe in c1200. Did "Islam" and "Christianity" really change that much over that time span or are there other proximate causes?

(At least the writer didn't say "Islam needs a reformation". Minus 1000000 points to him if he did.)

[Gustaf]

Ok, now I got your point. My objections would, summarized, be these:

1. The Middle East was behind Europe before there was much imperialism coming their way (say nineteenth century). So presumably you would have to find another explanation for why Europeans could subject them to imperialism and not the other way around.

2. People forget all of the intra-European imperialism that went on. For an Irishman I would have thought this to be an obvious point...Sweden introduced laws in the 15th century which demanded that at least half of officials in the major cities had to be Swedes. To prevent the Germans from taking over. The Germans imposed their religion, their technology and their trade laws on us. The Swedish wars against Denmark was even largely about combating the German influences on Swedish society (such as preserving the traditional freedom of the peasant in Northern Scandinavia). But none of this prevented modernization.

3. In terms of outsiders coming in to destroy your culture, this doesn't really explain why the Middle East is so horribly behind. Most if wasn't colonized, after all, or at least not until pretty late. In fact, the areas that were colonized earlier, like Northern Africa, are a lot better off than those that weren't (like Yemen or Saudi Arabia). Most of the Middle East as we normally think about it was under Ottoman rule until the end of WWI, for instance. East Asia on the other hand has done a lot better, even when you consider areas like India that was colonized well before. And countries that have done well have tended to be the ones opening up to foreign influences in a major way, like Japan in the nineteenth century or China in the last couple of decades. If you were to remove oil from the equation the Middle East is really in horrible, horrible shape. Especially in cultural or non-economic terms, I might add.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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That's dubious especially from a military point of view. It wasn't really until the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774 (yes, I had to wiki those dates fyi) can it be said that the Ottomans were no longer a force in European politics outside of their own sphere - with the Russians taking control of the Ukraine and the Crimea. The history of modern Imperialism in the Middle East is conventionally dated to the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. Hardly a major gap in time. In the eighteenth century, there were still a major slave raids on the European coast

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You want a PhD thesis? Well the expansion of the European economy owes alot to the freak discovery of the Americas - with the land freed up (at home and in the new world) with all the commodities it produced. Furthermore, the discovery of gold by the Spanish in the Nuevo Mundo led to the 16/17th century "price revolution" which debased many of the currencies of Europe and the Middle east - including that of the Ottomans. Aswell as the offspring advantages of Colombus, European state structures (much stronger than anywhere else) allowed for the formation of standing armies which didn't threaten the state in the eighteenth century and the weakness of the non-European states in comparsion (that is in terms of how much they control their populations) was another factor - The British conquered India using... well, Indians mostly; there was no real notion of loyalty to a state, rule remained personalist rather than the abstract 'state'. These are only some theories and some are gross oversimplifications but none of these factors I would argue really show European civilization to be 'more advanced' to others.

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I didn't forget it. It is just irrelevant to my general point about the middle east. And the mention of Ireland here is problematic - Many provinces of India were run for years/decades by Irish people and Irish soldiers in the British Armies tended to be good travellers.

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Is it behind - compared to other parts of 'the third world' anyway? Anyway my point isn't so much about outsiders destroying one's culture so much as outsiders reconfiguring society as to create economic dependancy and improvishment on behalf of a large part of the population. My point wasn't that Arabs didn't benefit from what might be termed the 'first waves of European intervention' (this can stretch from Napoleon to the end of WW2 really) - it is just a question of which Arabs and how?

I will note though that European imperialists often saw Arab politics and society through mock-orientalist prisms which are quite similiar to the thesis of Phknrocket's post.

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Ummm... why do you think North Africa was colonized first? (Hint: Before Oil, what does Saudi Arabia that anyone wants?) And anyway that's wrong - European intervention in the region began way before that - iirc the Portuguese ruled what is now Oman in the C16th (though the nature of rule was so different and belongs to a different epoch of European expansionism that it may as well be irrelevant. Read here).

Anyway it is important to note that may argument isn't against modernization as such as delinating why to speak of 'modernization' in the Middle East is problematic.

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You mean the India where practices like Sati can still continue and in rural areas people of different castes are not allowed to speak to each other and the infanticide of females is now an issue of international concerns.

As for the East Asia of China, Korea and Japan... well, this is traditionally the richest part of the world and still was until the end of the eightenth century. Neither China or Japan was ever fully colonized though China almost was. Japan's economic success is in large part due to its keeping of its economic independence in 1868 (though considering what Japan did with that independence, we may argue against whether that is a good thing or not).

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I really refuse to see how the (poorer non-oil parts of the) ME is/are unlike other parts of the third world. Actually the 20th century history of that region mirrors that of say, non-Islamic Africa whether well considering the very large differences behind the regions.

[Gustaf]

Lot to say here. I don't have much time right now, so I will fire off a few things:

1. China was one of the world's poorest countries before opening up their economy. And I mean that as in bottom 10 or so, poorer than most African countries. In 1965 they were actually the world's second poorest country, above only Ghana and behind Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania and many others. They were rich and powerful once upon a time, yes, but not in modern times.

2. I'd say the Middle East actually is behind, yes. If you ignore the effects of oil, that is. Sub-saharan Africa is also in bad shape, but then again, they have a much stronger case for blaming imperialism.

3. I'm well aware India is not a model society. I still say that it beats Yemen and Saudi Arabia in terms of democratic freedoms and gender equality. And, of course, the issue there is simply that they haven't modernized enough.

4. Your wikiing doesn't really counter my point, imo. Among fashionable radicals in Western Europe it's very popular to field a confused idea about how Western wealth was based on imperialism. My point is basically that the causality goes the other way. The imperialism is based on the wealth. Imperialism in itself was not, by and large, of much long-term material gain for the imperialist nation. (a simple look at the wealth of Western nations proves that colonies was hardly a major factor behind wealth accumulation).

At some point in time, the exact date of which doesn't really matter much, Europe had moved ahead of the rest of the world and could thus subject them to imperialism. I'd argue that the Turks peaked in the 16th century and then lost ground, which coincides well with the Renaissance and all of that.

Not all parts of this modernization might be deemed good by us today, but many of them were undoubtedly good and many of them held the seeds for the future goods that came about.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Gustaf I don't think you are getting my point - my point isn't that 'modernization' is bad per se but that it is a problematic contrust when discussing the Middle East. Anyway the actual 'modernizers' in the ME were defeated a long time ago (and for good reasons): not many people now think of Nasser as a hero.

There's an excellent Adam Curtis blog post on Helmand province in Afghanistan (not in the Middle East but is relevant to the discussion) which brings up some of the problems with the idea and exposes alot of the pseudo-orientalist nonsense we often get in relation to Afghanistan:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/10/kabul_city_number_one_part_3.html

Will post more later when have time.

[Gustaf]

I think I get what you mean, but there are a couple of points I think you're overlooking.

1. You said that modernization and imperialism went hand-in-hand in the ME. But that in itself isn't exogenous, is it? It did so because they didn't modernize "by themselves" (that's an awfully bad term for what I'm getting at, but I think you understand what I mean) the way Western Europe did. Which in itself requires some sort of explanation. Furthermore, as I said, China and even, say, Sweden modernized largely with outside influence that could be called imperialistic and was probably unfair and painful in many ways. But it still happened and it was still good, pretty much for everyone. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find groups of people in China or Sweden that were better off 50 or 500 years ago respectively and to the extent that you can it is very dubious whether they had a reasonable moral claim to it.

2. Actually, that was my only point, I just thought of it as one when I started out. I would like to try and flesh out where we disagree though.

As I understand it we're in some sort of broad agreement that modernization overall in the long run is a pretty good thing. Getting gender equality, democracy, medicines, clean water and so on is laudable. There may be differences of opinion on some stuff but as a general baseline. Then it seems your case is basically that the reason ME didn't modernize wasn't Islam but the re-distributional effects of modernization and the imperialist connotations of it in those countries.

What I lack then is a case for why modernization then still happened in all those other places where imperialism also played a great part and where the effects on farmers, etc were similar (as you said they were in the case of Sweden).

I don't necessarily disagree with you on some of these components, but as I said before I would think that they're partly linked to something particular to these societies. For instance, the reason why modernization had imperialist connotations was to some extent the very fact that they had not modernized on their own and then had to import these ideas. And the successful resistance to modernization seems to mark some sort of difference with respect to say Western Europe or Eastern Asia.