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Dear friends,
After some months of joining the HES list here it is my first posting. It
is about something affecting the core of my current research so I hope to
find some advice and guideline in your experience and knowledge ;)
I think I should first introduce myself... I am Olivia Orozco, graduate
student at Georgetown University. I got my bachelor degree in Economics at
the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. There I started the PhD in Economics
and International Relations, where I combined it with courses in the PhD in
Economic Theory. I stopped those studies to come to the States last year
and join the Master in Arab Studies at Georgetown University, within the
Economic and Development concentration with Professor Tarik Yousef.
Till the moment I have been mainly working on Islamic Economics and Banking
and Mediterranean issues but I am slowly sifting to the field of the
History of Economic Thought. I am interested in the transmission of
economic ideas during late medieval ages, from the Islamic world to Europe
through Spain.
Now, at Georgetown with Professor Yousef, I am researching the relevance
and importance of the work on monetary issues developed by Al-Maqrizi, a
disciple of Ibn Khaldun, in the fifteenth century. The most interesting
aspect of Al-Maqrizi's work is that, in his critique of the monetary policy
of the Mamluk government in Egypt, he directly linked high inflationary
periods with the debasement of currency. Al-Maqrizi delineated something
quite similar to the Quantity Theory of Money, with the aim of finding some
kind of “economic law” – what could be seen as a character of the posterior
“economic discipline”. Although Buridan and Oresmes are considered the
“first” monetarists in History -- a century before Al-Maqrizi -- the first
enunciation of the Quantity Theory of Money is attributed to Martin de
Azpilcueta (Navarrus) in the sixteenth century, at least half a century
after Al-Maqrizi’s works.
So, my big question is: Has someone studied the relation between Azpilcueta
and Al-Maqrizi? Is it possible that Azpilcueta read Al-Maqrizi and
Ibn-Khaldun works? Which was the role of School of Salamanca in the
transmission of economic ideas from the Islamic world to Europe?
The amazing thing of all this is that from Aristotelian roots both the
Latin Scholasticism and the “Islamic” Scholasticism arrived to very similar
conclusions about monetary and economic issues. The works of Thomas de
Aquinas and Ibn Taimiyah are very close both in content and approach. And
they belong to the same century. Isn’t it possible that there was some kind
of contact or interaction between both schools?
We need to look for evidence. Maybe in the years works were translated, in
the interaction between universities, in the sources used by the scholars,
their relations… etc. I don’t know.
Could anyone give me some ideas, advices or guidelines?
Thanks a lot,
Olivia Orozco
Olivia Orozco de la Torre
Master in Arab Studies, 2003
Economic and Develoment concetration
CCAS Georgetown University
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