The Middle East was part of the great Ottoman’s Empire which had enormous power and influence. The Empire was located in Constantinople the old Roman city. This great Islam empire ruled and dominated most of what had been the Roman empire in the North Africa. The Ottoman Empire also covered a large portion of Europe since the year 1400 and in the years of 1500 the Muslim world dominated the world economy. In 1700s the ability of the Middle East, then the great Ottoman Empire to wage war had considerably reduced.
An Empire that made income from wars had now been unable to go into wars after the emergence of the European powers. The great Ottoman Empire had depended on wars to earn income, their extraordinary courage, great hand man swords and machetes or the powerful talent of archery nor the graces of quick and unnoticeable mobility could salvage the economic giant of the time. The Ottoman’s empire believed so much in their instruments of battle even with passage of time that they were left behind by technology. In the 1700 the Ottoman Empire was a big exporter of military paraphernalia. The economic growth greatly depended on it. The people of the then Ottoman Empire, now the Middle East were mainly subsistence farmers practicing farming in small scale.
In the year 1727, some thought was placed on reviving the once powerful empire and printing press company began operations. There was introduction of cotton growing between the years 1750 and the year 1789 this helped improve the economic tough times that were slowly taking shape in the vast Middle East region. There was also growth in the exports of semi processed to the northwest Europe. The Muslim’s in the Ottoman empire practiced local trading which by then had no significant outcomes in the globally arena considering the influence and the power of the Ottoman’s empire prior the 1500s.Muslim merchants dominated most of the local trade.
In the 1800s there was still no clear strategies to face the uncertain future but the Middle East remained optimist of better times ahead. Being mostly Islamic region the Middle East that was governed by Islamic laws, the Middle east required just a great leader to led the region to economic boom again. There were oppressive taxations practice on the on the local merchants and the Greek traders, this did not go well towards balance of trade with rest of Europe which by then had gained significant millage ahead of the Middle East.
The then Sultan Selim III embarked on measures to make the Middle East a successful trading block but before that he need people to acquire skills in different professions so as to stimulate economic growth from all sides. He started colleges that impacted various skills to the people including engineering, medicine and even politics. During the period of the 1800s most the challenges experienced in the 1700s were beginning to slowly fade as new forms economic growth emerged. The Middle East developed a comprehensive transport system which was to cater for the need of the traders and the Muslim merchants. The transport network included the land and sea. In regard to land, in the city of Anatolia the Ottoman’s used the caravanserai from Selcuk Turks that initially preceded them. On the aspect marine transport ships were provided to the merchants to allow them to trade without hitches.
Basically those are the major comparisons of the two centuries in terms of economic growth and economic history of the Middle East.
Works cited
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Ibn-al-At̲īr, ʻIzz-ad-Dīn A.-H. A, and Donald S. Richards. The Chronicle of Ibn-Al Athīr for the Crusading Period from Al-Kāmil Fī'l-Ta'rīkh: 1. Aldershot [u.a.: Ashgate, 2006. Print.
Ross, Stephen D, and Alfred N. Whitehead. Perspective in Whitehead's Metaphysics. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. Print.
