A few days ago I stirred a hornets’ nest with a column [the post immediately preceding this one on the blog] looking at why the Middle East lags economically and politically behind the rest of the world. The column was based on a terrific new book, “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East,” which was written by a Duke University scholar, Timur Kuran, who is an expert on the economic history of the region.
It’s difficult to address the issues comprehensively in 780 words (the length of a column), so I’ve asked Professor Kuran to expand a bit and address three common points raised by readers. The first question raised by many readers is about women: isn’t one major factor in the Middle East’s long stagnation the fact that it underutilized the female half of its population? If you’re only playing with half a deck, is it any wonder you lag? The second common question was about Western colonialism ”” many Arab readers thought that was far more important a factor in inhibiting Muslim countries than my column suggested, so I’ve asked Professur Kuran to address that. And, finally, many readers were left profoundly uncomfortable with the exercise itself ”” asking “Is Islam the Problem?” Is this a dangerous, unhelpful line of inquiry that ultimately creates polarization and cross-cultural antagonisms?
Can a worldview influence and or be harmful? The answer is yes. No one would seriously argue that worldviews do not determine how one looks and acts in the world. Well, Islam is a worldview. In all other cases liberals, and the PC crowd) have no problem in analyzing and criticizing (even ridiculing) worldviews. Somehow only Islam is exempt.
An interesting issue is that some liberal Westerners argue that Orthodox Christianity is likewise a harmful world view. They could also argue that the rise of the West, Industrial Society, Liberal Democracy has coincided with the slow decline of Orthodox Christianity.
Perhaps viewed in this light, can the Orthodox–Christian or Muslim–respond that there are fundamental and systemic flaws in Modern Industrial society, which did not exist in pre-Industrial society, which need to be addressed?
That may be a more useful debate than Good Industrialization versus Backward Orthodoxy.
The author makes two standard assumptions:
1: Al Andalusia was a european “golden age” of cultural and religious tolerance.
[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/spain_1.shtml ]”Some historians believe this idea of a golden age is false and might lead modern readers to believe, wrongly, that Muslim Spain was tolerant by the standards of 21st century Britain.”[/url]
2: Muslims preserved the writings and science of the ancient Greeks.
[url=http://www.aina.org/aol/peter/timeline.htm ]400 A.D. (5150) The great translation movement. Assyrian monks, because of their close ties with Greek Christianity, translate the significant body of Greek knowledge into Assyrian, including all the great works of religion, medicine, philosophy, science, and mathematics. These works are eventually translated into Arabic and brought to Spain by the Moors, where they are translated from Arabic to Latin and distributed through Europe, igniting the Renaissance.[/url]
Similarly, the concept of the value zero, attributed to Islamic mathematical innovation, was “borrowed” from the Hindus.
An argument could be made that the scientific contributions if islam lasted until the subjugation and islamization of conquered territories was complete, and the cultures responsible had been assimilated.
Is it coincidental that the efflorescence of Europe really took hold only after the reconquista was completed in 1492?
Nonetheless he still makes the observation that aspects of muslim culture very well may be responsible for the muslim world’s evident cultural stagnation.
I am forced to wonder what spawns the effusive praise for the muslim culture today from those who will be the first to be overwhelmed by it if becomes ascendant. It stinks of propaganda.
A new caliphate would spell the eventual end of what limited progress towards human emancipation has been effected in the west.
These two posts tempt me to break my rule against clicking on NY Times links. Based upon the small experience of having lived two years among Muslims in the Middle East, a lot of the excerpted comments ring true. To a great extent the culture seemed petrified. It is also still heavily tribal, in part by design because of the Islamic family and inheritance laws.