Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East


Book Description

First Published in 2004. Did medieval Muslims have the concept of a 'social class'? If not, can we usefully employ the term in analysing their society? Were there such things as guilds in the medieval Middle East? Would we understand the economic de- cline of Mamluk Egypt better if we used paradigms derived from the study of the economic history of England and Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? How much can the enormous fiscal archive of the Ottoman Empire tell us about population history? Why was the Middle East so backward, if indeed it was, compared with the rest of the Afro-Asian world in the nineteenth century? Have Iran and Iraq better prospects for economic growth than otherwise comparable countries thanks to their oil royalties? Or are these paradoxically a hindrance rather than a help? The study of the economic history of the Middle East in Islamic times is notoriously underdeveloped. This volume contains papers discussed at an international conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1967, together with three short critical essays which attempt to tie them together. Some papers are specific contributions to research, others survey wider areas. The volume is not a comprehensive history or a systematic inventory, but it is hoped that, in addition to presenting a set of papers which are interesting in themselves, it will give the reader a tolerable idea of the state of studies in the field.




Rulers, Religion, and Riches


Book Description

This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.







Islamic Economics


Book Description

This comprehensive survey of Islamic economic thought covers the development of ideas from the early Muslim jurists to the period of the Umayyads and Abbasids. The economic concerns of the Ottomans, Safawids and Moghuls are examined, as is the profusion of more recent writing.




Oil and the political economy in the Middle East


Book Description

The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil, which started mid-2014, had major repercussions across the Middle East for net oil exporters, as well as importers closely connected to the oil-producing countries from the Gulf. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century – one that has continued to impose constraints, but also provided opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The studies reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period but were incapable of repelling burdensome adjustment policies, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to fulfil the expectation that they could benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection signifies that rentierism still prevails with regard to both empirical dynamics in the Middle East and academic discussions on its political economy.




Islam in History


Book Description

From secular-minded autocrats like Saddam Hussein to religious fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden, powerful voices in the Islamic world have been united by a fierce hatred of the West. If we want to know why they think the way they do, we have to understand the history of Islam and its continuous interactions with the West. This masterly collection of essays by a leading expert on Islam and the Middle East ranges over the whole sweep of Islamic history and Western attempts to comprehend it.




African Social Studies


Book Description

African Social Studies: A Radical Reader, is an essential and wide-ranging collection of essays by some of the world's finest social scientists, known and lesser-known. This impressive collection covers issues such as the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, problems in the field of African Studies, national liberation movements, and more. No student of Africa should be without this volume.




A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East


Book Description

From ancient Mesopotamia into the 20th century, "the Circle of Justice" as a concept has pervaded Middle Eastern political thought and underpinned the exercise of power in the Middle East. The Circle of Justice depicts graphically how a government’s justice toward the population generates political power, military strength, prosperity, and good administration. This book traces this set of relationships from its earliest appearance in the political writings of the Sumerians through four millennia of Middle Eastern culture. It explores how people conceptualized and acted upon this powerful insight, how they portrayed it in symbol, painting, and story, and how they transmitted it from one regime to the next. Moving towards the modern day, the author shows how, although the Circle of Justice was largely dropped from political discourse, it did not disappear from people’s political culture and expectations of government. The book demonstrates the Circle’s relevance to the Iranian Revolution and the rise of Islamist movements all over the Middle East, and suggests how the concept remains relevant in an age of capitalism. A "must read" for students, policymakers, and ordinary citizens, this book will be an important contribution to the areas of political history, political theory, Middle East studies and Orientalism.




The A to Z of Islam


Book Description

"Along with a list of abbreviations and acronyms and a map of the Islamic world, a chronology lists important dates from the 6th to the end of the 20th century, and an introductory chapter outlines the history of Islam. A comprehensive bibliography guides the serious student for further research."--BOOK JACKET.