Medieval Islamic Economic Thought: Filling the Great Gap in European Economics (Islamic Studies Series) Review

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Medieval Islamic Economic Thought: Filling the Great Gap in European Economics (Islamic Studies Series) ReviewThis is more or less another attempt at changing the mind of the modern Social Scientists about history and society. Same as terms such as "Ancient" and "Mediaeval" and "Renaissance" apply to, and have been exclusively used to describe, European history, concepts such as "thought", "rationality" and "progress" have also been made exclusive by many social scientist and the general opinions seem to agree on this exclusive use. As such, Europe and the West, the basis for most conslusions made about the course of history, are assigned the unique position of having history, meaning a "progression" of time, resulting in real change, development, and dynamic forces within its history. At the same time, the non-European world is ascribed the adjectives of static, irrational, backwards, and basically "history-less".
This general thinking has also resulted in ignoring the rest of the world when it has come to consider the progression of the ideas that are important to all human societies. Basically, it has been taken so much for granted that only "The West" has had any impact on "history" that even "thought" and "knowledge" have been made to apply only to the Western mind.
In this context, Joseph Schumpeter, the Austro-American economist brought about a theory, suggesting that between the collapse of the (Greco-)Roman civilisation and the dawn of the Renaissance, the course of the "Dark Ages", no significant economic thought or progression ever took place. In his mind, the supposed fall of Rome and the rise of the Mediaeval "World" (here the "World" is really only Europe, about one tenth of the known world at the time) marked the death of "progressive" economic thought "initiated" by the Greeks and made practical by the Romans. The situation was then only remedied when the Renaissance "World" again discovered the "Classics" (Greco-Roman classics, not the Chinese, Indian, Arabic, or Persian ones).
Schumpeter's theory was dubbed "The Great Gap" theory. Naturally, since the world we live in now is pretty much defined by the economic successes of Europe and the West in the last two centuries (post Industrial Revolution), then it was never seen as necessary or possible to oppose Schumpeter's theory, like other Eurocentric ideas in the realm of culture or religion have been.
However, many, including Prof. Ghazanfar, have been crying from the side-lines that the above is not true. The Great Gap was well and alive in Europe, like many things unique to Europe during the Middle Ages (see religious intolerance, poverty, deadly epidemics, and lest we forget, Feudalism!). However, like these other phenomena, the Great Gap also did not find parallels outside Europe. Ghazanfar does not discuss it, but I would encourage you to read Andre Gunder Frank's "ReOrient" to see that China presentes a devestating antithesis to Schumpeter, and we can only hope that someday we get to show that "India" was also not fitting within this Great Gap.
Ghazanfar, then, convincingly demonstrated that within the world of North Africa and West Asia, not only was economic activity (albeit in its non-European, non-Industrial way) alive and well, but so was economic theory and "thought". By bringing in the works of people who determined the course of economy in this region and even directly influenced many Late Medieval and Renaissance minds (particularly the links between Muslim economic theorists and eccelsiastical and secular European thinkers such as Aquinas or Bacon), Ghazanfar attempts to bring in ample examples of active and practical economic theory (from forces designed to regulate the market to the relationship between total economic production and government consumption) to show that the Great Gap was not present in the world to the south and east of the Mediterranean. In this, he is remarkably successful and is further assisted by auxiliary and complementing articles describing the situation in the Islamic lands beyond the Mediterranean environ. Some debates and discussions are also included, broadening the issue to include more than a few issues particular to the world of medieval Islam. However, the fact that the book is an edited volume of many articles, each requiring their own introduction and discussion of basic issues, the book tends to become a bit repetitive towards the end, although these parts can be easily escaped when they are absorbed properly from the earlier articles.
Of course, for examples of how economy actually worked in this world, one should look at Gene Heck's "Mohammad, Charlemagne, and the Arab Origins of Capitalism"!Medieval Islamic Economic Thought: Filling the Great Gap in European Economics (Islamic Studies Series) Overview

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