BBK > The decline of Islamic economies in the latter Middle Ages often is ascribed to dynamics internal to Islam. But had factors specific to Islam been the only cause, then leading economies that were not Islamic should have continued to thrive. Yet this logic fails.

A huge topic – so I will add my two-penneth in the hope of bringing a little balance, rather than in order specifically to contradict.

Kuru seems to be very focused on the rather well known decline in Arab scholarship etc in the face of the rise of Turkish military dictatorships, especially after 1000.  This seems to me a somewhat “internal” matter, tied to the decline in both silver and copper coin use in the face of growing feudalization.  

The 15th century Islamic scholar Maqrizi saw the intellectual heath of societies very much tied to the maintenance of a middle class scholarly group receiving adequate incomes in silver coin (not least himself!), and that does seem to me interestingly accurate.  As the Arab caliphate declined during the 9th century vast silver stocks were shipped out of Islam into N W Europe, as Islam rejected markets and Vikings came to love them.  But such matters are cyclical. By the time of Saladin Islam was swapping its gold back to Europe for silver – perhaps contributing in turn to the flowering of Islamic scholarship that Maqrizi and his teacher Ibn Khaldun themselves represented.  Meanwhile Europe became a elitist war torn gold using disaster zone down to the end of the 15th century.

Kuru draws attention to what I take to be religious intolerance of the Seljuks – but again that seems hardly a merely Islamic affair.  Cromwell (and the Pilgrim fathers) had a rather narrow outlook too.  As did Christians under Theodosius. Actually the ‘wrong sort’ of tombs were getting smashed up in Brittany about 6,000 years back.  Profound stuff.  

I suppose I tend to see the rise of the West as linked to the rather spontaneous and bloodless rejection of Puritanism in late 17th century England.  Admittedly perhaps a blinkered and biased personal view.

If anyone is interested - aspects of this current theme was handled with great competence by Andrew Murrey Watson in his 1967 paper “Back to gold and Silver”

Rob Tye