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PREFACE
Few aspects of the history of the Middle East in the last two hundred years have received less attention than the economic. The paucity of literature on the subject may be easily ascertained by referring to the standard bibliographies or to the articles listed in Index Islatnicus and its Supplement. Yet it is clear that without some grasp of the economic changes that occurred during this period, no real understanding is possible either of the course of events in other fields of Middle Eastern history during these two centuries or of economic developments in the region during recent decades. This book is an attempt to fill one of the many gaps in this field by presenting a selection of articles and extracts from reports, articles, and books on various aspects of the economic history of Turkey and the eastern Arab countries; as such it may be useful not only to students of the Middle East but also to those working in the general area of economic development. It is presented essentially as an aid in teaching and research. If it serves to arouse interest in this neglected subject and stimulates further study, it will have fulfilled its main objective.
The region under review consists of Anatolia, Arab Asia, and the Nile Valley. the period covered is 1800-1914, but in certain selections the narrative continues beyond 1914; literature on the period after the First World War is relatively abundant and easily accessible. Within these limits, emphasis varies from country to country, depending on the particular nature of its history.
The nineteenth century, which is the object of study, forms a transition between the “medieval” and “modern” periods in the history of the Middle East. The emphasis of the selections is therefore on the gradual transformation that took place during that century: the integration of the region in the international commercial and financial network, the investment of foreign capital, the development of mechanical transport, the transition from a subsistence to a market-oriented agriculture, the decline of the handicrafts, the growth of the population, and the attempts to establish modern industries. Of course this transformation was part of the wider changes in the political, social and cultural life of the region.
the primary aim in selecting the material has been to include the best and most interesting texts available. Within this framework, four criteria have been applied:
First, no passage written in English has been reproduced if it was originally published in a book. This has led to the exclusion of important writings by such authors as Bonne, Crouchley, Gaitskell, Gibb and Bowen, Hoskins, Landes, Bernard Lewis, Longrigg, Rivlin, Stanford Shaw, and others, an exclusion justified, however, by the ready availability of the books written by these authors.
Second, preference has been given to texts in non-Western languages over texts in Western languages, and within the latter group, to non-English texts over English.
Third, priority has been given to articles, reports, and pamphlets over books, and to older books over more recently published ones.
Last, since the main laws, treaties, and concessionary and other agreements affecting economic activity have been reproduced in J. C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East (Princeton, 1956), no attempt has been made to include such documents here, with a single, short exception.
Of the sixty-two selections, seven are published here for the first time, and one of them was written specially for this book. They cover two centuries, the earliest having been written in the 1760’s and the latest in the 1960’s, and they are drawn from English, French, Arabic, German, Russian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Italian. Twenty-nine were originally written in English, and published translations of two others were available. The Hebrew passage was translated by Professor Gerson D. Cohen, my colleague. Some three-quarters of the others were translated by me, and I have checked all the remaining ones against the original text and revised the draft. Each part of the book is preceded by a short essay; these essays are somewhat longer for those countries where material is scarcest. Each selection is preceded by an introductory note, with bibliographical references. The selections and introductions have been arranged so as to provide a more or less consecutive narrative and bring out the salient features of the economic history of the country concerned.
Appendixes on weights and measures and on currencies, a brief glossary of the Arabic and Turkish terms used most frequently in this book, and a selected bibliography are also provided. A few explanatory words or sentences, as well as cross-references, have been inserted in the text or footnotes; all such additions in the text are enclosed in brackets; added footnotes are indicated by “Translator” or “Editor.” Otherwise, except for some omissions, no attempt has been made to edit the selections—thus the numbering of tables in the original texts has not been changed and references to passages not included in this book have been kept.
No book on the Middle East can avoid a mention in the preface of transliteration. I have made little attempt to change the fanciful spelling of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish words used by some of the authors included, or to correct their inconsistencies. in the translated passages and introductions, I have used a reasonably consistent system, following Turkish practice in Part II and Arabic in the others, omitting diacritical marks other than the Arabic ‘ain and the Turkish f and and paying due respect to usage; in these passages Arabic and Turkish words have been italicized, except terms meaning weights and measures and currencies. I believe the result should be intelligible to the reader.
I should like to thank the following colleagues and friends who read parts of the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their comments and criticisms: Shepherd B. Clough, D. M. Dunlop, P. H. Holt, A. H. Hourani, J. C. Hurewitz, George Rentz, and F. H. Stoakes; Mrs. Judy Marsh, Miss Marilyn Sjoberg, Miss Isabel Ludeman, and Miss Lily Venn, who typed the manuscript; and above all my wife, whose help at every stage was invaluable. Dr. C. Zurayk read the proofs and made many helpful suggestions.
Lastly, I wish to express my gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Social Science Research Council, which granted me fellowships in 1961-62 for research on the economic history of the Arab countries, and to the School of International Affairs at Columbia University, whose financial assistance made it possible for me to carry out much of the work that went into this book.
Part I
General Introduction
General Introduction: Decline and Revival of the Middle Eastern Economy
The long history of the Middle East has witnessed several cycles of growth and decay. The last of these shows a slow and prolonged decline from about the twelfth century until the nineteenth, followed by a sharp recovery and steady growth to the present day.1
The causes of the economic decline of the Arab countries in the medieval period have still to be determined, but the fact of the decline itself stands plain. By the eighteenth century the cultivated area in Iraq had shrunk to a minute fraction of what it had been in the tenth, and the population had correspondingly diminished. In Syria, for whose population under the Romans a figure of ten million has been declared "by no means improbable”2 and which may perhaps more realistically be estimated at five to six million,3 the total had dropped to perhaps two million by the end of the eighteenth century. The margin of cultivation had moved much nearer the coast than in Roman or early Arab times, and in some spots, it actually reached the sea. In southern Arabia the prosperity of former times survived only in legend. Even Egypt had fallen very low although, thanks to the regularity of the Nile and to the strength of the Mamluk army, it had been spared the worst calamities that befell its neighbors. Its population, which is reliably put at eight million in Roman times, is estimated to have fallen to not more than four million4 by the fourteenth century and by 1800 stood at about two and a half million. The cultivated area had also appreciably diminished.
Urban life had suffered less than rural, since the breakdown of the state had never been complete and since the government always retained some authority …
1 Perhaps the best single study of the economy of any medieval Arab country at its peak is ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Duri, Tarikh al- Iraq al-iqtisadi (Baghdad, 1948), covering tenth-century Iraq. See also, on Fatimid Egypt, Rashid al-Barawi, Halat Misr al-iqtisadia fi ‘ahd al-Fatimiyyin (Cairo, 1948).
2 F. M. Heichelhcim, “Roman Syria,” in Tenney Frank (ed.), An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (Baltimore, 1927), IV, 158. Throughout this book, unless otherwise indicated, the term Syria denotes “natural” or “greater” Syria, i.e., the area now composing the states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.
3 Julius Beloch, Die Bevolkertmg der griechish-romischen Welt (Leipzig, 1886), cited in Heichelhcim, op. cil.
4 Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, I, 209.
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