The Economic State of Muslim World

The factors that led to the economic downfall of Muslim civilizations continues to bedevil Muslim nations and individuals today. Stark economic mismanagement is the hallmark of almost every single Muslim country today

MUHAMMAD TARIQ GHAZI 

Last week I had to make an unscheduled dash to the Canadian capital of Ottawa. During a hectic three-day sojourn I could snatch an evening to spend with a few friends. There, as is usual, our discussion focused on the poor performance of the poor Muslim community – poor in many ways. This poverty is sweeping the enormously rich nations more than, say, the nondescript Malians and Maldivians.

The argument hovered around academic and intellectual failure of world Muslims as compared with Hindus many of whom are holding top executive positions in well-known American corporate conglomerate and cash cartels.

Why so was the star question raised by a well-read Pakistani Canadian engineer before the talk veered to Pakistan as the test case, of course with a blunt reference to Muslim Indians who do not fare any better than their ethnic cousins across the “mutually sanctified” border no longer known as Radcliffe Line after its author Sir Cyril. My view partly discussed there and partly elaborated here was and is unorthodox, as usual. Old habits die hard.

To begin with, I argued that one major problem with Muslims around the world was their stark economic mismanagement which is the hallmark of every single Muslim “nation” today – as well as Muslims of India and Britain and Canada and the United States and France and Germany and Belgium.

I do not wish to lament further. People may continue that task if it soothes the wounded pride. Here I would like to trace some history of the causes of economic decline of Muslims.

In about 7th century BCE, economic geniuses of the world had developed a global economic system which advanced so much in the next one thousand years that people from what are modern day 20 nations benefited from that trade system. This was known as Incense (aka Frankincense) Road.

This was a sea-route/land route. Another trade system developed at around second century BCE mainly passed through land called the Silk Road. Both Incense and Silk Roads would open at the southern Chinese city of Canton, now known as Guangzhou, lying in a cozy Pacific bay about 120 kilometers northwest of Hong Kong.

The Incense Route would then pass through (modern) Korea, Sultan Kudrat (Philippines), Sabah, Java, Sumatra (Indonesia) Malaya (Malaysia) Burma, India (Bangladesh=Chittagong), Sarandip (Sri Lanka) India (Calicut/Bhatkal/Thana/Debal) Yemen (Mukalla/Aden) Oman (Muscat/Salalah), Asir, Hijaz (Makkah/Badr/Yathrib-Madinah/Tayma/Khaybar/Tabuk), ash-Sham (Basra/Maan/Damascus/Antioch), Anatolia, Byzantine (Constantinople=Istanbul), Greece, Balkan-Adriatic states in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia), Sicily, Italy (Rome).

In addition, the Silk Route on land passed by China (Xinjiang), Transoxania (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), Afghanistan, India (Pakistan/Kashmir), Persia, Iraq, ash-Sham (Syria), Armenia, Anatolia, again reaching up to Rome through the last laps of the Incense Route, thus serving another dozen nations of today.

Traditionally in every country that the Incense and Silk Routes passed through were countless wholesalers and retailers engaged in trade and business ensuring global prosperity.

The system continued to flourish for more than two thousand years when an Italian jeweler Maffeo Polo (1230-1309) came up with a new idea. He conceived of a New Economic Order under which ‘Middle Man’ was to be eliminated. He visualized an economic system in which the European traders would buy Asian products directly from the manufacturers/producers/wholesalers and fill the markets in Europe, bypassing businesses in all countries on the route.

Maffeo who was dealing in gems in Constantinople closed down his business, converted cash into precious stones and travelled by land to the Mongol courts in Bukhara and China. Where he was not successful his more famous and more articulate nephew Marco Polo (1254-1324) succeeded.

Marco convinced the Chinese traders to sell him goods at a higher price, and used his flotilla to bring the merchandise directly to Europe bypassing all the traders earlier engaged in the trade chain. Later, this policy was applied to India by Portuguese sailor Vasco de Gama (cir.1460-1524), enthusiastically taken up by boards of directors of East India Companies of England, Holland, France, etc. De Gama paved the way for colonialism and control of global economy (and sources of economy) by small European nations.

This is the background of modern society and recent history of prevailing Muslim behavior. Both the Incense and Silk Routes were left in disuse as a result of European maritime adventures. On-route economies, especially those of Muslim/Arab countries began draining from the 16th century onward.

A point of comparison is that during the reign of Shah Jahan (r:1628-1666) an Indian tanka (rupee) was worth 55+ British pounds; by the 1950s a British pound could buy 52+ Indian/Pakistani rupees. Today a British pound is worth 100+ Indian rupees, 128+ Bangladeshi takas and 162+ Pakistani rupees).

Shattered economies on the Incense-Silk Routes hit the development cycle with little resources left for grooming the available talent. Continuous civilizational development needs regular supply of trained brains which are a by-product of financial resources. Inventive talent is developed by properly financed proactive, creative and production-oriented educational system.

Since money supply was blocked, the Muslim world of the post-17th century stopped producing creative talent. Educational systems imposed on these societies through the so-called local reform movements were designed to kill creativity and encourage the ability to ape and copy Europe in order that indigenous masses stay perennially behind the masters.

This is a long story which cannot be discussed here. In short, a relatively unknown Swiss-British Muslim scholar-author Charles le Gai Eaton (1921-2010) once said the Muslims would lag behind the West as long as they were copying it.

Another factor is economic mismanagement which is the hallmark of not only Muslim/Arab states but of Muslim/Arab businesses and Muslim/Arab individuals. In spite of maltreatment for 200-plus years, Muslims have failed to show any community sense.

The so-called Ummah is beset with mutual distrust, total absence of collective economic planning and organization and management, disregard for grooming future generations for well-defined social progress, in addition to an unhealthy focus on petty politics (within Muslim/Arab tea-groups and at high forums at national levels where they have such freedoms) with little understanding of the working of the prevailing archaic as well as modern political systems. These factors are contributing to stagnation if not continuous decline of Muslim World.

Muslim societies – intellectuals, academics, media to be specific – do not care for or bother about planning. Muslim governments are not capable of using whatever little wealth of thinkers/doers their societies possess. The reason is that both societies and governments do not have any specific objective to achieve. And here we are lamenting about our pathetic state every time some of us sit over a casual cup of tea or loaf of bread.

Muhammad Tariq Ghazi is an eminent Indian journalist, scholar and poet based in Ottawa, Canada. He served as Managing Editor of Saudi Gazette, an English daily published from Jeddah, for several years.

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