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IN 2002 a group of Arab scholars produced a brave report, under the auspices of the United Nations, on the Arab world’s twin deficits, in freedom and knowledge. A salutary debate ensued. Now Timur Kuran, a Turkish-American economist based at Duke University, has written an equally brave book on “how Islamic law held back the Middle East”. One can only hope that the result will be an equally salutary debate.
For most of its history the Middle East was just as dynamic as Europe. The great bazaars of Baghdad and Istanbul were full of fortune-seekers from hither and yon. Muslim merchants carried their faith to the far corners of the world. In the 1770s Edward Gibbon had little difficulty imagining Islamic theology being taught in Oxford and across Britain—if only the battle of Tours-Poitiers in 732 had turned out differently.

Culture and lifestyle
But even before Gibbon the balance of power had shifted. Angus Maddison has calculated that in the year 1000 the Middle East’s share of the world’s gross domestic product was larger than Europe’s󈟚% compared with 9%. By 1700 the Middle East’s share had fallen to just 2% and Europe’s had risen to 22%.
The standard explanations for this decline are all unsatisfactory. One is that the spirit of Islam is hostile to commerce. But if anything Islamic scripture is more pro-business than Christian texts. Muhammad was a merchant, and the Koran is full of praise for commerce. A second explanation is that Islam bans usury. But so do the Torah and the Bible. A third—popular in the Islamic world—is that Muslims were victims of Western imperialism. But why did a once-mighty civilisation succumb to the West?

A. 어휘
crescent 초승달. cf. the Crescent 이슬람교.
profound 深遠(심원)한. auspices 後援(후원), 찬조, 吉兆(길조).
deficits 부족, 결손, 적자. salutary 유익한, 건강에 좋은.
ensue 결과로서 생기다, 계속 되다. held back 억제하다.
yon 저쪽에. merchant 商人(상인). theology 神學(신학).
Edward Gibbon 영국의 역사학자.
Tours-Poitiers 프랑스 중동부에 위치한 戰迹地(전적지). 이슬람 군대를 패퇴시킴.
gross domestic product(GDP) 국내총생산. decline 衰退(쇠퇴).
hostile 敵對的(적대적)인. if anything 어느 편이냐 하면.
scripture 經典(경전), 성서. texts 原典(원전). merchant 상인.
bans 금지하다. usury 利子(이자), 고리대금.
Torah 유대교 율법, 모세 5經(경). imperialism 제국주의.
once-mighty 한 때는 强大(강대)하였던. succumb 굴복하다.