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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2012
A central question of economic history since the 19th century has been why capitalist development (often identified with modern transformation) took place in western Europe and not in other parts of the world, notably, in China and Islamic lands, which experienced commercial expansion and the beginnings of industrial development. Diverging patterns of institutional change in the West and elsewhere, representing divergent responses to changing conditions of trade and production, have attracted historians’ attention especially at moments of dramatic institutional shifts such as those of the 19th century. These moments coincided with the establishment of the hegemony of one region over others. With respect to the Ottoman Empire, Islam and its institutional deficiencies—most notably, of its law—have been invoked as explanations for the region's inability to achieve modern economic development. Scholars have portrayed a pragmatist state culture as responsible for the empire's longevity, while the same scholars also held that culture responsible for impeding liberal market development by allowing intensive state intervention in the economy.
1 Kuran, Timur, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011)Google Scholar. Kuran's work represents an institutionalist perspective; he argues that Islamic law impeded the ability of individuals to make rational decisions based on self-interest.
2 Pamuk, Şevket, “Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1800,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (2006): 225–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pamuk emphasizes the pragmatic culture of the early modern Ottoman state in responding to social and economic changes by generating new institutions. For the institutional innovativeness of the Ottoman and Qing states in accommodating change, see İslamoğlu, Huri, “Modernities Compared: State Transformation in the Ottoman and Qing Empires,” in Shared Histories of Modernity in China, India, and the Ottoman Empire, ed. İslamoğlu, Huri and Perdue, Peter (London and New Delhi: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar.
3 Orientalist and modernization perspectives are representative of this vision. See Lockman, Zachary, Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 For representative work, see İslamoğlu, Huri, ed., The Ottoman Empire and World Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.
5 İslamoğlu, Huri and Perdue, Peter, eds., “Introduction,” Shared Histories of Modernity.Google Scholar
6 For a more detailed treatment of the Land Code, see İslamoğlu, Huri, “Property as a Contested Domain: A Re-evaluation of the Ottoman Land Code of 1858,” in New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle East, ed. Owen, Roger (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 3–61Google Scholar.
7 On the Orientalist argument that the “gates of ijtihad” or legal deliberation were closed after the 12th century, see Johansen, Baber, Contingency in Sacred Law: Legal and Ethical Norms in the Muslim Fiqh (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999), 1–77Google Scholar.
8 The Bismarkian social state of the 19th century was a response to social unrest occasioned by industrialization and a precursor of post-World War II welfare states, which likewise sought to manage the influence of trade unions in industrial societies.
9 İnalcık, Halil, “Islamization of Ottoman Laws on Land and Land Tax,” in Osmanistik-Turkologie-Diplomatik, ed. Fragner, Christa and Schwarz, Klaus (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992)Google Scholar.
10 North, Douglas, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Acemoğlu, Daron and Robinson, James A., Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 İslamoğlu, “Property as a Contested Domain,” 3–61.
