There is a wide accepted concept that after centuries of development, the Muslim world began to decline in the 15th century. Did it really decline? In this work I would like to illustrate the main trends of developments of the Muslim world in early 15 – early 20 century. We know that in part of the second millennium, and for five centuries later there were many Asian invasions in other regions of the world, wide expansion (Seljuk, Arab, Turkish). But then the stagnation began. Since the "golden age" of the Abbasid Empire, it has not changed territorially. And large areas of Islam were held at the feudal state. It may be provided that the Muslim world has declined especially since European expansion in modern times. But European domination at that time did not touch the Muslim world. India was colonized first followed by the colonization of China. Japan has escaped this domination by its insular position and accelerated modernization policy of its economy and its political system. And suppose that the decline of the world of Islam and ancient civilizations is not a decline, and, after all, is just a natural logic of history. This means that the world has not declined and that there are the conditions that made inevitable namely such development of events.
Through which main events and trends did the Muslim world go in early 15 – early 20 century? Why has the Muslim world regressed so much? It still must be found out. Should we rather think that it is Europe that has advanced and the Muslim world stagnated? But even with stagnation, regression of the Muslim world is implied. On the other hand, the purely religious level is that the letter of Islam has changed. Islam, beyond the interpretations, also changed in these centuries. Islam does conquer souls, still today, in the twenty-first century. Islam is a revealed religion as religions which emerged before it, Judaism and Christianity. And this is cited in the books of Islam. What happened to the civilization of Islam in the stagnation or decline of Muslim states in this period? Islam like any religion only shows the right way to go.
There are certainly specific causes. It cannot be explained by only gifted and talented people as the British writer Rudyard Kipling in his poem “The White Man's Burden”.
The history of a civilization can be compared to the story of a man through his work in the world. "Man is born, grows, lives, works and then declines and dies." It is purely natural process sum. But if the man dies, it is reconstituted, leaving offspring, and the offspring increases, and forms human groups, peoples and nations. Thus was formed humanity, in which the history of peoples and nations. Specifically, Europe and indeed other parts of the world have undergone this process. Except that Europe, after the arrival of Islam, was put on the defensive at first, then began, after reconstituted, to "grow up" and "going out" its borders, as the man whose descendants grew.
The early expansion of Europe on the Arab-Muslim world began in the late eleventh century, in 1095 at the request of Pope Urban II. Crusades lasted more than two centuries. We know eight crusades, probably there were more. And these crusades probably were made possible as a demographic expansion which commissioned these crusades. Without population growth in Europe, the Crusades would not have been possible. Neither was the colonization of the Americas and around the world.
Muslim world then was a mosaic of peoples. Although they had the same religion, the peoples of Muslim world did not speak the same language. In a small space, a great ethnic diversity, not found in any region of the world, indicated, despite the antagonism, an advantage for them. It was countered by a political, economic and social organization of Europe. The third element is the subsistence problem. Wheat, for example, was distributed to the people by the rulers as an essential element for life. Who held the wheat and controlled the way to European countries? This was the Muslim world which territories were huge and really without defined borders?
Finally, the fourth and the fifth element respectively relate to the cold climate of Europe and the wars that did not stop in Europe and were the work of sovereigns to enlarge their fiefdoms. Which was not the case for the Arab and Muslim world that had a warm mild climate, therefore, required less keeps, unlike cold facing Europeans? Finally fewer wars because of religious and linguistic unity that prevailed in the Muslim world which territories were huge. And a good part of the population was nomadic.
All the features that have played in the expansion of Europe did not exist in the Arab-Muslim world. This explains the development of European countries for "nine centuries" on the Arab-Muslim world, and which were interrupted by the Black Death (plague) that decimated a third of Europe's population in the fourteenth century the emergence of the Ottoman Empire which played a role as a buffer between Europe and the Arab and Muslim world for four centuries.
But since 1800, the situation turned around. The Ottoman Empire began to decline and this diminished its role as a buffer. The colonization of India and parts of Asia was already substantially completed in 1820. The Arab-Muslim world was facing Europe. European domination followed marked a turning point in the history of mankind. Europe was at its peak.
For a more strict view of the changing world, it is obvious that it must appeal to the encrypted data of the demographic evolution of humanity to understand the causes of the affirmation of the Muslim countries in the world.
According to UN data, the European population (with Russia) was estimated at 65 (drop due to the Black Death), 84, 125, 195 million inhabitants respectively in 1400, 1500, 1700 , 1800. The population of China (with Korea) was estimated, for the same dates, at 70, 84, 150, 330 million habitants. In North Africa, the population of the five countries (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) is estimated, for the same dates, 8, 8, 9, 9 million.
Compared to Europe and China, North African population, to a huge area of about 5.6 million km2, has hardly increased for these centuries. The population actually declined between 1400 and 1600. Demographically, Europe was dominating. France, for example, in 1801, was the nation with 28 million inhabitants, it was rated "fourth world demographic power" after China, India, and Japan. Japan had 30 million inhabitants in 1800. The demographic factor has been crucial in the expansion of Europe and Japan in the world.
Besides, these figures we shall show clear disparities in population distribution between different regions of the world. France, for example, had a demographic pressure of 50 inhabitants per km2 in 1801. The United Kingdom had, by that date, 11.9 million people, had population pressure of 49 inhabitants per km2. On the same date, China (with Korea) and India (with Pakistan and Bangladesh) had, in 1800, demographic pressure respectively 33 and 44.7 inhabitants per km2. The five North African countries had an incredibly low population pressure (almost negligible) 1.6 inhabitants per km2. By taking a third of the total area of North Africa, the rest are desert regions (Sahara), the demographic pressure of the five countries was only 4.8 inhabitants (Dallh. 424-430).
If one proceeds to population projections in 1400, 1500, 1700 and 1800 for Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and that we keep the proportions of the number of inhabitants that these countries today, we get respectively for each of them the following inhabitants: 3.25 million for Egypt, 2.25 million for Algeria, 2.25 million for Morocco, 450,000 for the Libya and 800,000 to Tunisia. This would have a global population of 9 million that would have virtually not changed for five centuries (Western data). Also noteworthy is that life expectancy at birth, during these centuries, was very low, on the order of 25 to 30 years for all countries. Obviously, these figures are only the Western extrapolations as there was no census in the past. Until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century, these data begin to be in Europe, then spread to the entire world.
In 1900, the North African population began to increase and this process was paradoxically simultaneous with colonization." It counted 23 million people and population pressure on the non-desert area (1/3) passed at that time, to 12.3 inhabitants per km2. Pressure was still very low, it cannot be compared with the demographic pressure from France was on the same date 72.5 inhabitants per km2.
Should we think that "colonization was a necessary evil"? Since the two major countries of the world increased from 1800 to 1900: respectively for China from 330 to 415 million people, and India from 190 to 290 million inhabitants. The five North African countries in 2000, were going to 143 million people with population pressure in the non-desert areas of 76, 6 persons per km2. This rate compared to population pressure from France (population of 58,796,000 in 2000), which is 106.6 inhabitants per km2 shows that North African countries have evolved very positively since their independence and the demographic gap France has declined significantly. On the other hand, life expectancy increased significantly to birth it is now between 70 and 80 years, and generally for all countries. And this demonstrates tremendous progress in medicine and the comfort of modern life in terms of nutrition, housing, transport, employment, social security, etc (Kennedy, 112).
However Europe, before the colonization of North Africa, the Middle East, had the largest population pressure in the world. Europe was a small territory which did not provide the necessary supplies to the population. This explains colonial expansion. However, the demographic problem was not the only factor. European expansion required a support. It will be given in part by the lack of linguistic, religious and political homogeneity that caused by antagonisms, many wars between European nations. Wars that were highly attenuated in large ensembles Indian, Chinese and Muslim, given their centralized political systems (Chinese Empire, Mughal Empire and Ottoman Caliphate). Unlike Europe which political power was disseminated among kings absolutist rulers of the Muslim world by divine right, often related by blood, kept by a series of alliances that are made and unmade, Europe in an incessant war situation. Thus is understood the extreme aggressiveness of Europe that sought to carve out empires in the world (Al-Andalusi. 229-246).
But the colonial ambition still required human and material resources. If human resources are given by high population pressure, the material means will be given by the agricultural and industrial revolutions that will both increase the European population and advances in weaponry. The boom arms that found nowhere in Europe will build its military power in the world. We must realize, and this is essential, that without "scientific advances that have given the agricultural and industrial revolutions," there would have been to Europe or demographic pressure nor colonial expansion. Therefore, the question arises about the origin of his progress that has played a central role in the progress of Europe in the world.
In 1500, the technological dynamism of the Middle Ages had given Europe a steady supply of food, mechanical and industrial competence, an advantage in weapons, a marine technology it to venture on the seas, all allowing Westerners this time to gather the stories previously separated peoples in a unique experience for all humanity.
During the Ottoman rule, Muslims but also peoples Asia and Africa, still faced the plagues, the famines, so much that their population had declined in some regions, their production was stagnant and could not identify investments may terminate this demographic weakness, which is accompanied, moreover, a military retreat, manifest with the defeat by the Russians in 1774, with the result that the Black sea ceased to be an Ottoman lake, the Russians presence in Crimea. Thus, the Middle East and Maghreb became suppliers of raw materials and purchasers of manufactured goods, a situation that continues today (Drury. 231-232).
Tax policy is a reflection of the dominant social class beneficiary of the rentier economy based on exports of oil, real estate. Taxation did not touch those rents, including capital gains that come from grabbing land rent. Stock market gains are usually exempt from tax instead of productive activities. This tax policy has been aggravated by the creation of tax-free zones. And new investments are zero even when it comes to opening a hotel that produces little of value or subcontracting quite passive with a multinational thereby monopolizing the bulk of profits hardly benefit the Arab and Muslim world.
The decline of Muslim civilization was due to the stifling of freedom of thought. Another reason is the Ottoman conquest, which, as the conquest of Rome by the barbarians, was the cause of the collapse of the Muslim empire.
Islam of the first centuries, especially through the enlightened despotism of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, was very tolerant of free thought of Arab philosophers, but from the thirteenth century, religious fanaticism has taken over and Islam gradually prohibits free thought, any intellectual curiosity. On the other hand, the Turks, mostly barbarians imposed a suffocating military despotism, supporting religious fanaticism in the suppression of freedom of thought. Turks were judged to be conquerors just as for example the Germans in late antiquity. The second cause is now under attack, due to the refinement of the court and society Ottoman heirs of Byzantine culture. International trade in spices, silk was the Muslim world the necessary intermediary between Europe and Asia. It was bypassed by Europeans going through intermediaries Muslims from the sixteenth century. Portuguese went around Africa to get the spices directly, while Spaniards crossed the Atlantic and discovered not only America but also new routes to Asia. The Muslim world was abandoned by the major international trade routes. The Mediterranean sea lost its dominant position in favor of the Atlantic. Refusal of innovation in the Arab-Muslim world: religious prohibitions and economic blockade, with the example of the refusal of the printing press, banned by the religious. The Koran had to be copied by hand. Islamic science denounced as a heretic by religious zealots was stifled by theological pressures of spiritual conformism, which could be a matter of life or death for thinkers and scholars. (Kennedy, 112)"
Furthermore we mat challenge the closure of the Muslim world on itself, because of the certainty of his superiority, real before its decline, confirmed by a former undisputed supremacy because of his conquests. This superiority complex explains the refusal to adopt the ideas and techniques from the European peoples regarded as barbaric, a general rejection of all that could come from the West that we find in exacerbated today the Islamist movement.
The practice of slavery
Islam, born in the seventh century, comes from the Late Antiquity inherited from slavery when feudal Europe was characterized by serfdom. While the slave was considered as a thing, an instrument, personal property, the serf is considered a person with a clear legal status. He was under contract to a lord he cultivates the land, the stately reserve in return for this chore he works a piece of land, assigned by the Lord to meet his needs and those of his family (Abbott. 115-123).
Contempt screw labor is less pronounced than in the case of slavery. And since we considered that the technical delay in antiquity had this slavery discrediting any manual task, making interest-free technical progress, and therefore instigator of economic stagnation and that there was a cause the decline of the Roman empire, it is considered that this practice continued slavery in the Arab-Muslim world must be considered as a factor in its decline. This image of the slave attached to the concept of work discredits this productive activity, whose name comes from the Latin word tribalism who was in Rome an instrument of torture, which explains the lack of interest of Veterans for productive techniques, such that water mills are known by the Romans, but they do not try to use them on a large scale, while the European Middle Ages will experience a technical revolution with their generalization. Therefore, the same thing would have happened in Islam with the same lack of interest in the development of productive techniques.
Similarly, "In the West, capitalism and cities, basically it was the same thing". The ideas of the Muslim world - as indeed the Chinese or Indian world - will never enjoy the same freedoms as the ideas of the West to innovate, to the extent that they included in centralized empires (Saunders, 87).
So the decline of Muslim civilization has no single cause like the Roman Empire, but several, where geography plays an important role: movement of trade towards the west with the discovery of America, the type of transport by caravans of dromedaries or camels, continentality of the Muslim empire, but also institutional factors: lack of political reforms, maintained inferiority of women, slavery, technical stagnation, all linking to a closed interpretation, literalist Quran strengthening the confusion between religion and organization of the state and society , unlike Europe (Issawi .172-184).
If the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire are multiple one of them seems predominant: The tax appetite of the Roman state which caused by backlash systematic increase in the tax powers and penalties fraud or evasion of tax, which took away the riches wanting the corner and pushed the populations of the empire to receive the "barbarians" who put an end to this unbearable heaviness of these. But here's what became a public calamity and plunged the world into a common mourning the census imposed in whole provinces and cities [in Galley]. The widespread centers upset over everything: it was the image of the tumult of war and the terrible captivity. We measured the field clod by clod, there were the vines and trees, we recorded the animals of every kind, we noted the names of individual men; in every city, we gathered the population of the city and countryside, all seats were filled with families piled in herds; all were present with their children and their slaves; torture instruments and yards were constantly ringing, the son were hung to make them testify against their parents, the most faithful servants were put to the question against their masters, wives against their husbands. When all failed, we tortured him to people they judged themselves and, when the pain had conquered, were assigned their property that they did not. Neither age nor disease was an excuse. It appeared sick and infirm, the estimated age of each, adding years to the children, by subtracting the age. It was all that grief and sorrow (Hitti and von Grunebaum. 931).
Similarly, for the Muslim civilization, if the causes of the decline are multiple one of them is predominant: It is the confusion between religion and the organization of the state and society, due to a closed interpretation of the Koran, considered the universal source of all knowledge. During the conversation, General Bonaparte said that Arab sheikhs had cultivated the arts and sciences of the time of the caliphs, but that they were now in deep ignorance and that they do nothing remained of their knowledge of their ancestors; the Sadat Sheikh replied that they left to them the Qur'an that contained all knowledge. The General asked whether the Koran taught to melt guns. All sheiks present boldly answered yes (Mayer, 193-215).
Confusion Kemal Ataturk that by rejecting the introduction of the separation of state and religion in Turkey, a secular, changing the nature of relations between the individual and the state institution that is no longer religious but policy: the individual is no longer defined in terms of its EU membership in the Ummah, as a believer, a Muslim, but compared to a nationality and thus as a Turkish citizen.
Works cited
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