{"id":28,"date":"2002-09-25T12:09:02","date_gmt":"2002-09-25T17:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=28"},"modified":"2002-09-25T12:09:02","modified_gmt":"2002-09-25T17:09:02","slug":"what-went-wrong-with-what-went-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"What Went Wrong with What Went Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Based on a recommendation from a blog reader, I picked up “What Went
\nWrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response<\/a>” by Bernard Lewis.
\nGiven the mixed Amazon reviews, I borrowed the book from the library.
\nThe obvious criticisms of the book’s style are correct — What Went
\nWrong is a collection of transcribed lectures, hastily taken to print
\nafter September 11th. The essays are not edited together to support a
\nthesis, and they do not provide a satisfying answer the question in the
\nbook’s title.
\nEven so, one might expect that lectures given by one of the world’s
\nleading experts in Middle Eastern history might contain substantive
\ninformation based on primary source research, combined with insightful
\ninterpretations and a powerful, implicit argument driven by the
\nscholar’s point of view, developed through decades of thought on the
\ntopic. Such a book would be worth reading, though it would require more
\nwork by the reader to assemble the thesis by means of marginal notes.
\nThe book has interesting facts and stories. But Lewis’ interpretations
\nare badly inadequate, even from the perspective of someone with a
\nsketchy understanding of Muslim history.
\nThe subject of the book is the response of the “Middle East” to
\nincreasingly evident Western economic and military superiority in modern
\ntimes. Lewis is an expert on the Ottoman empire, and the book focuses
\nprimarily on the Ottoman Turks, secondarily on Iran, and very little on
\nArab regions (not at all on other Muslim countries which are out of the
\nbook’s scope).
\nAfter several painful defeats in the late 17th century to European
\narmies, Ottoman rulers initiated a series of campaigns to study and
\nintegrate Western military, economic, and technological advances.
\nThe trouble is that Lewis seems to take for granted the flaws in Ottoman
\nculture that he purports to explain. Lewis reports that initiative to
\nlearn from Europeans was a traumatic change. “For Muslims, first in
\nTurkey and later elsewhere, this brought a shocking new idea that one
\nmight learn from the previously despised infidel.” The Ottoman rulers
\nturned to the Ulema, the masters of Islamic law, and requested an
\nexemption from the traditional prohibition against accepting infidel
\nteachers.
\nYet the intellectual insularity shown by the Ottoman empire was not
\ntypical of earlier Islamic regimes, which embraced and integrated
\nexternal cultural influences and non-Muslim expertise. Baghdad, the
\ncapital city of the Abbasid dynasty, was laid out by a Jewish
\nmathematician and a Persian astronomer. Al-Khwarizmi, the Muslim
\nmathematician, explained the Indian number system in Arabic, and made
\ninnovative contributions to algebra. Abd al-Rachman III, the ruler of
\nMuslim Spain at the height of its power and cultural influence, had a
\nJewish vizier, Hasdai ibn Shaprut.
\nLewis explains the Ottoman ignorance of Western ways as an outcome of
\nMuslim prohibitions against traveling and settling in foreign lands.
\nThis geographical insularity also was not typical of earlier Muslim
\nregimes. In the medieval era, the Muslim world was a key link in a world
\nsystem of trade that linked Europe and Asia. Muslim merchants spent
\ntheir lives in caravans and ships; there were longstanding Muslim
\nsettlements in Southeast Asia and China.
\nThe interesting question is not why the belated efforts of the Ottoman
\nempire to adopt infidel knowledge failed. With its underlying attitudes
\ntoward “foreign influence” it does not seem so surprising that these
\nefforts were too little, too late. The question is why the Ottoman
\nempire was so much more insular and narrow-minded than the Muslim
\nregimes that came before it.
\nLewis does mention the decline in Muslim science since medieval times.
\nIn the medieval era, Muslim scientists sought out Greek, Indian, and
\nPersian knowledge, and made innovative contributions to mathematics,
\nastronomy, and medicine. By the Ottoman period, Muslim scientists were
\nno longer seeking new sources and adding to the world’s store of
\nknowledge, “they had their own science, handed down by great scientists
\nof the past.” What happened to the Muslim intellectual tradition in the
\nmean time that destroyed its ability to learn and innovate?
\nLewis writes that Ottoman efforts to jumpstart the economy by importing
\nfactories failed to take root. But he includes no evidence or analysis
\nof underlying economic structures that might have inhibited or fostered
\neconomic progress. Two points of comparison. Throughout the medieval
\nera, the Muslim world played a major role in international trade. In the
\n16th century and later, European ships discovered alternate sea routes
\nto the Far East, and established permanent colonies, cutting out the
\nMuslim segment of the trade route. In 1568, the Ottomans drew up a plan
\nto dig a canal through Suez, to render the Red Sea route competitive
\nagain. The following year, they started to dig a canal between the Don
\nand the Volga rivers, to improve the northern trade route. But these
\nplans were abandoned, in favor of head-on war with Russia and Vienna.
\nWhy did the Ottoman military initiatives supersede economic ones; did
\nthey miss the connection between money and power, or did they believe
\nthat territorial conquest would serve them better?
\nIn contemporary era, the Arab regions were graced with oil wealth. They
\nimported unskilled Chinese laborers to build oil platforms and
\nrefineries. The Chinese workers learned the technology, saved their
\nmoney, and within a generation had developed world-leading businesses in
\nconstruction and transportation logistics. Why didn’t Arabs take
\nadvantage of their privilege and money to move up the value chain and
\ndominate the worldwide oil, chemical, and shipping industries?
\nOne might attribute Middle Eastern economic stagnation to flaws in the
\nMuslim legal and financial systems. Lewis doesn’t make this argument,
\nbut he does make much of the fact that concept idea of secular law comes
\nfrom the Christian world, where a separation between church and state
\nwas needed to keep chronic religious wars from wrecking society. Lewis
\nexplains that European colonial and post-colonial regimes imposed
\nsystems of secular, Western law, which were sometimes adopted and often
\nresisted by Middle Easterners. Anti-Western Muslim governments throw
\noff the imported systems, and return to the Sharia, the traditional
\nMuslim law code.
\nContemporary Sharia systems in places like Iran and Afghanistan are
\noften mocked for being medieval and backward, legislating repression of
\nwomen and brutal corporal punshment (no, I’m not in favor of the Texas
\ndeath penalty, either). But there is no empirical reason that a system
\nof Muslim jurisprudence needs to be backward. After all, European laws
\nonce featured trial by ordeal, and prevented women from owning property.
\nA living tradition of Muslim law might be able to adapt to current
\neconomic and social conditions. How did the Sharia change from a system
\nthat had once reflected the standards of justice of its time to one that
\ninsisted on avoiding change?
\nLewis writes that Western ideas of equal rights and democracy, which
\nunderlie Western legal systems, likewise caught on slowly in the Middle
\nEast, and were often imposed by outsiders. Colonial and
\nWestern-dominated post-colonial regimes insisted on full rights for
\nnon-Muslims, and the ending of slavery (though they ignored restrictions
\non women). Ideas of liberty were sometimes used by internal reformers,
\nbut were often resisted as foreign grafts.
\nBut there is no logical reason that Islam itself could not make these
\nchanges — even without a secular system. Islam is based on ideals of
\nequality and justice — why could these ideas not be extended to
\nenfranchise women, free slaves, and institutionalize the rights of
\nnon-Muslims, as they were practiced in the most tolerant Islamic
\nsocieties. Likewise, there is a Muslim tradition of consultative
\ngovernment. Why has this not been developed into a system of government
\nthat takes into account the voices and needs of different sectors of
\nsociety.
\nLewis’ analysis of the failure of the Middle East to adopt Western
\ntechnology is weak and superficial. Lewis provides some interesting
\nprimary-source documentation about the slow adoption of modern clocks
\nand calendars into Ottoman administration. The resistance to modern
\ntimekeeping is illustrated with anecdotes of the leisurely pace of life,
\neven today, in Middle Eastern countries. But Lewis doesn’t ask the
\ninteresting questions about why the technology of time was ignored. In
\nWestern society, technologies of time were adopted in government and
\nbusiness administration, industrial production, and transportation. The
\nOttoman empire had a fairly advanced administrative system. What was
\nmissing in Ottoman government and economic institutions that they did
\nnot see the benefit of these technologies, or were unable to implement them?
\nNorvell De Atkine, the US military trainer, argues that contemporary
\nMiddle Eastern armies failed to successfully assimilate modern weapons,
\nnot because of lack of technology, but because of flaws in
\norganizational culture. Middle Eastern governments brought in Western
\ntrainers and technology, but the troops were unable to use and maintain
\nthe systems because of their aversion to sharing information. An officer
\ntrained in the use of a weapons system would not share that knowledge
\nwith rest of his men, because sharing knowledge would reduce his power.
\nDid Ottoman armies and administrations have these problems sharing
\ninformation — is this what made it diffiicult to embrace new technology
\nand methods? In the early days of Muslim conquest, were armies this bad
\nat communicating, and successful nevertheless? Lewis doesn’t say.
\nSome of Lewis’ explanations about the Middle East’s failure to
\nWesternize are simply laughable. Lewis makes much out of the reluctance
\nof Middle Easterners to appreciate European classical music. Lewis
\nattributes Middle Eastern indifference to European classical music to a
\ngeneral aversion to foreign influence, and in particular to a dislike of
\npolyphonic technique, which uses the same organizational genius as
\nWestern team sports, parliamentary government, and corporate structures.
\nLewis doesn’t notice the many and substantial foreign influences on
\nMiddle Eastern music, which come from the East instead of the West.
\nMuslim classical musical styles were heavily influenced by Indian and
\npre-Muslim Persian styles. Popular Middle Eastern music is full of
\ninfluences from Central and Eastern Europe. Today, music from India is
\nextremely popular in the Middle East. Muslims do like foreign music,
\nthey just happen to find eastern styles more congenial than western styles!
\nBy contrast, Lewis talks approvingly of the adoption of European
\narchitectural styles. He does not mention that medieval Muslim empires
\ncreated their distinctive architectural styles from the elements of
\nexisting buildings. In Eastern regions of Muslim dominance, mosques were
\nconverted from Byzantine churches. In medieval Spain, Muslim took the
\ncolumns, literally and figuratively, from the ruins of Roman buildings.
\nMuslim architecture always incorporated foreign influences; this was the
\nrule, not the exception.
\nThroughout the book Lewis describes the tensions between modernizers,
\nwho wished to replace the traditions of Muslim society with European
\nimports, and traditionalists, who wished to recover a lost world of
\ncultural purity. Lewis himself seems to agree with the assumptions
\nunderlying this debate, and he takes the side of the modernizers. Lewis
\nseems to embrace the assumption that a strong civilization builds its
\nown culture out of native materials; but a weak civilization needs to
\nadapt to cultural norms of the stronger power. Lewis doesn’t consider
\nthat a strong civilization is one which is able to embrace, absorb and
\ntransform diverse influences. In other words, Lewis makes the same
\nmistake as the subjects of his historical inquiry.
\nHere’s what I take away from the book, based on Lewis’ evidence and
\nother reading. The decline in Muslim civilization occured long before it
\nthe evident decline of the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman empire was
\nmilitarily powerful in its day, and wealthy at its prime, but it lacked
\nthe cultural flexibility required to innovate and adjust to change.
\nBut why was the Ottoman empire so insular and inflexible? Lewis
\ndescribes the phenomenon, but doesn’t explain it.
\nBy the way, I haven’t read Said’s Orientalism (yet), which criticizes
\nBernard Lewis in particular, and Western scholarship in general, for
\ncolonalist and racist stereotypes of the inferiority of Muslim cultures.
\nThe problem with What Went Wrong isn’t that Lewis’ criticisms are
\nbiased, it is that they are shallow; they don’t explain very real flaws
\nof Middle Eastern societies in modern times, which are flaws even with
\nrespect to the greatest historical achievements of Muslim civilization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on a recommendation from a blog reader, I picked up “What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response” by Bernard Lewis. Given the mixed Amazon reviews, I borrowed the book from the library. The obvious criticisms of the book’s style are correct — What Went Wrong is a collection of transcribed lectures, hastily … Continue reading “What Went Wrong with What Went Wrong”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prDRq-s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}