The long divergence
Subtitle: how Islamic law held back the Middle East
By: Timur Kuran
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Princeton; Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 405
ISBN-13: 9780691147567
Subjects: Islamic law; Economic conditions; Economic policy; Economic aspects; Economic development; Islam
Description: "In the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen dramatically behind--in living standards, technology, and economic institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically underdeveloped compared to the West? In The Long Divergence, one of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these long-debated questions.

Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life - including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up. And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and weak civil societies - all characteristic of the region's economies today and all legacies of its economic history - will take generations to overcome.

The Long Divergence opens up a frank and honest debate on a crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the Muslim world have hesitated to discuss."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The puzzle of the Middle East's economic retardation; title: Analyzing the economic role of Islam; title: Commercial life under Islamic rule; title: Stagnation of Islamic commercial organization; title: Constraining features of the Islamic inheritance system; title: The absence of the corporation in Islamic law; title: Barriers to the emergence of a Middle Eastern business corporation; title: Credit markets without banks; title: The Islamization of non-Muslim economic life; title: The ascent of the Middle East's religious minorities; title: Origins and fiscal impact of the capitulations; title: Foreign privileges as facilitators of impersonal exchange; title: The absence of Middle Eastern consuls; title: Did Islam inhibit economic development?