Capitalism in Islamic World -- I
January 5th 2007 07:17
Earlier, I had written about capitalism in ancient Assyria. There was a burst of trade and capitalism in the same part of the world in a totally different epoch. The time is eighth century, the place is Baghdad.
From Bernard Lewis's book, Arabs in History:
The trade of Islamic Empire was of vast extent. From the Persian Gulf ports of Siraf, Basra and Ubulla and, to a lesser extent, from Aden and the Red Sea ports, Muslim merchants travelled to India, Ceylon, the East Indies and China, bringing silks, spices, aromatics, woods, tin and other commodities, both for home consumption and for re-export. .....
In Scandinavia, and especially in Sweden, scores of thousands of Muslim coins have been found bearing inscriptions dating from the late seventh to the earliy eleventh centuries, showing the period of efflorescense of Islamic trade. many finds of coins along the course of the Volga confirm the evidence of literary sources as to an extensive trade between the Islamic Empire and the Baltic via the Caspian, the Black Sea and Russia. .......
With Africa, too, the Arabs carried on an extensive overland trade, the chief commodities which they imported beging gold and slaves......
Apparently, even then capitalism had to contend with the Big Government and Petty Bureaucracy. Here's Lewis:
If the industry recieved some encouragement from the State, amingly from fiscal reasons, trade was not so helped, and even in such matters as the maintenance of roads the State seems to have done very little to promote commerce. The merchants were compelled to wage a constant struggle against the ever-encroaching bureaucracy. The economic action of the State was at first limited to a general ban on specualtion in vital food stuffs--nopt very effectively enforced-- and to the work of the Muhtasib, an urban official whose task it was to superintend the markets..... At a later date the State began to intervene more directly in commerce, even attempting to trade in and monopolise certain commodities for itself.
From Bernard Lewis's book, Arabs in History:
The trade of Islamic Empire was of vast extent. From the Persian Gulf ports of Siraf, Basra and Ubulla and, to a lesser extent, from Aden and the Red Sea ports, Muslim merchants travelled to India, Ceylon, the East Indies and China, bringing silks, spices, aromatics, woods, tin and other commodities, both for home consumption and for re-export. .....
In Scandinavia, and especially in Sweden, scores of thousands of Muslim coins have been found bearing inscriptions dating from the late seventh to the earliy eleventh centuries, showing the period of efflorescense of Islamic trade. many finds of coins along the course of the Volga confirm the evidence of literary sources as to an extensive trade between the Islamic Empire and the Baltic via the Caspian, the Black Sea and Russia. .......
With Africa, too, the Arabs carried on an extensive overland trade, the chief commodities which they imported beging gold and slaves......
Apparently, even then capitalism had to contend with the Big Government and Petty Bureaucracy. Here's Lewis:
If the industry recieved some encouragement from the State, amingly from fiscal reasons, trade was not so helped, and even in such matters as the maintenance of roads the State seems to have done very little to promote commerce. The merchants were compelled to wage a constant struggle against the ever-encroaching bureaucracy. The economic action of the State was at first limited to a general ban on specualtion in vital food stuffs--nopt very effectively enforced-- and to the work of the Muhtasib, an urban official whose task it was to superintend the markets..... At a later date the State began to intervene more directly in commerce, even attempting to trade in and monopolise certain commodities for itself.
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