MIDDLE EAST A

The continent
of Africa in the pre-nineteenth-century
period became a peripheral area
PERIPHERAL
AREA
in relation to the global market economy, the continent of Asia was able to remain
entirely outside and unaffected
The great empires of India and China, the kingdoms of Korea and Japan, and the
mainland sections of Southeast Asia, all were unmindful of, and impervious to, the
ubiquitous Westerners
There was one exception to this general pattern of Asian apartness, and that was the
Middle East
Middle East, comprising the territories lo cated at the juncture of Europe, Asia and
Africa
During the pre-nineteenth-century era, most of the Middle East was encompassed
within the frontiers of the sprawling Ottoman Empire - at the outset this empire was
self-sufficient, self-confident and aggressive
- Its formidable Janissary Corps being the scourge of Christian Europe
- its impressive administration the envy of Western visitors
late sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire declined precipitously in efficiency and
strength.
- Superior Western armies overran outlying provinces of the empire, while equally
superior Western trading firmsthe so-called Levant companies won considerable
economic control over the remaining provinces of the empire

Furnished with All God's Gifts

"

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was the emperor of the ottoman empire.
Ottoman Empire encompassed vast territories stretching from Algeria to the Caucasus
and from Hungary to the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.
-In these lands lived peoples of diverse strains and creeds, totaling approximately fifty
million compared to the five million in contemporary England.
Western travelers in the Ottoman Empire were impressed by the efficiency of its ad
ministration

-Christians were carefully selected and trained for their government posts
-People were named as "slaves" of the Sultan,
- They manned the entire imperial bureaucracy, including the office of the
grand vizir, which was second only to that of the Sultan
- Appointment and advancement depended largely on merit, a striking
contrast to prevailing practices in Christian Europe
- In making his appointments the Sultan pays no regard to any pretensions
on the score of wealth or rank -he considers each case on its own merits, and
examines carefully into the character, ability, and disposition of the man whose
promotion is in question

Peasants were better off in ottoman empire

- Balkan Christian peasants under Ottoman rule were better off than Christian
peasants across the Danube in Hungarian or German lands
- Preference for the Turks was manifested repeatedly during wars when Christian
peasants sided with the Turks against their own rulers and nobles
- The basic reason for such opting in favor of Turkish rule was that peasants were
better off under the Ottoman land tenure system than that prevailing in Christian
countries.
When the Turks conquered their empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
they parceled out the fertile areas as fiefs or timars, which they distributed among
their most deserving warriors and senior officials.
The timar holders, or spahis, were strictly controlled from Constantinople, their
obligations being carefully defined, as were the rights and privileges of the
Christian peasants, or rayas.
They enjoyed hereditary use of their land and could not be evicted unless they
failed to till it for three years. Their obligations, consisting of tithes to the spahi,
taxes to the state, and limited corvee duty, were generally lighter than those borne
by the peasantry of Christian Europe..

The sultans took various measures to make Constantinople the center

for intercontinental trade among Asia, Europe and Africa.
- Their measures were largely successful, and both merchants and artisans
prospered, especially because they were now operating in a huge empire with
correspondingly extensive resources and markets
- . Cities increased dramatically in size, while foreigners were excluded
from operations they formerly had dominated, such as the profitable Black Sea
trade
The empire was largely self-contained
- The empire consists of the fertile plains of Hungary, Romania, Asia Minor
and Egypt producing abundant foodstuffs and raw materials
- The skilled artisans of Constantinople, Salo-niki, Damascus, Baghdad,
Cairo and other ancient cities turned out a multitude of handicraft products
- imports were limited mostly to luxury goods such as
European woolens, Indian textiles and spices, Russian furs and
Persian silk.

 The Old Order and Proceeded Harmony

The magnificent Ottoman imperial structure was
shaken to it foundations and its collapse appeared
imminent
The startling reversal of imperial fortunes was in part
the result of internal weaknesses, but more basically it
was the impact of expanding Western capitalism
One cause for Ottoman vulnerability to Western
pressures was the failure of the empire to achieve
political integration comparable to that of Western
Europe with its nationalism and nation-states
The growth of absolutist monarchies, the appearance of
a middle class desiring unity and order, the spread of
literacy and the development of new techniques for
mass propaganda and indoctrinationall these
contributed to the emergence in the West of highly
integrated state structures with unprecedented affinity
between rulers and ruled

The Ottoman Empire was loosely organized along theocratic lines

- Its diverse peoples were recognized on the basis of their

religious affiliation (Muslim, Orthodox, Catholic and
Jewish) rather than of their ethnic composition (Turks,
Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, Armenians, Romanians, Greeks
and Slavs).
- The primacy of religious affiliation meant that there was
no single unifying sense of allegiance within the empire.
- The average Ottoman subject thought of himself
primarily as a member of a guild if he lived in a city, or
as a member of a village community if he lived in the
countryside. If he had any feeling of broader allegiance
it was likely to be directed to the head of his religious
community rather than to the person of the Sultan.
- The looseness of organization weakened the resistance
of the empire to foreign aggression, both ideological
and politic

The Ottoman Empire was loosely organized along

theocratic lines
The absence of a common Ottoman nationalism left an ideological
vacuum that was filled by the several Balkan and Arab nationalisms that
drew inspiration from the victories of other nationalisms in the West
the European powers were able to annex entire provinces
of the Ottoman Empire not only because of superior
military strength but also because the populations of those
provinces felt no particular attachment to Constantinople
The Ottoman Empire lagged behind the West in
scientific progress as well as in political cohesion
By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the Turks
were building their empire, Islam had degenerated to the
point where it meant little more than a series of rituals to
be performed and a Heaven-sent book to be memorized
Ottoman medressehs, or colleges, from the outset
emphasized theology, jurisprudence and rhetoric at the
expense of astronomy, mathematics and medicine

There was an almost abnormal inter est in literature but very little in the
sciences
The Turks knew nothing of the epoch-making achievements
of Paracelsus in medicine
Ottoman retardation in science led inevitably to a
corresponding retardation in technology and productivity
The Middle East fell behind, particularly in the development
and utilization of nonhuman sources of energy. One
example is the more efficient use of horsepower by the
invention of a new harness that did not choke the horse
when it pulled a load.
Scientific and technological backwardness had
military repercussions.
- The core of the Ottoman armed forces was the territorial
feudal cavalry, or spahis, who showed up with a number of
retainers depending on the size of their fiefs
- They were armed with the traditional medieval weapons
bow and arrow, sword and shieldand resisted the use of
firearms as unbecoming to their sense of chivalry
Being a land people with no naval traditions, the Turks

Perils of Proximity
The downfall of ottoman empire was due to expansion of
modern capitalist Western civilization.
The distinctive feature of the Ottoman
experience was its timing
It was the first of theAsian civilizations to face
the problem of "decline" relative to the West
because it was adjacent to the West, and
therefore most vulnerable to its expansionism, whether
intellectual, political, economic or military
Most obvious and dramatic was the military
intrusion of the West.
Hapsburg and Russian armies were on the other
side of the Ottoman frontiers, while Venetian,
Russian, British and French navies had access to
all ports of the Ottoman Empire via the

Perils of Proximity
Ideological intrusion across Ottoman frontiers was
as difficult to block as the military.
ethnic groups often sprawled across both sides of
the Ottoman frontiers
Romanians, Serbians and Croatians on both the
Hapsburg and Turkish sides, and Romanians,
Kurds and Armenians on both the Russian and
Turkish
Numerous Greeks and Bulgarians established
trading communities in Odessa, Naples, Trieste,
Venice, Budapest, Vienna and other European
cities.
revolutionary nationalist ideology imbibed in
European countries inevitably permeated
through the Ottoman Empire, arousing the

Perils of Proximity
The various nationalisms functioned like time
bombs that demolished successive segments of
the Ottoman imperial structure as the diverse
ethnic groups became infected by the nationalist
virus from abroad.
Foreign powers, needless to say, did not hesitate
to use these time bombs to further their interests
Napoleon, for example, expressly ordered
General Gentili in 1797 to exploit Greek
nationalist sentiments in order to facilitate the
conquest of the Ionian Islands. "If the inhabitants
are inclined to independence, let's foster their
tendency, and do not hesitate to speak about
Greece, Athens, and Sparta

Perils of Proximity
Territorial proximity also facilitated Western
political pressures on the Ottoman Empire
The classic example of this was the system of
commercial arrangements known as the
capitulations
After the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453
they signed these commercial treaties with the
Christian states in order to stimulate trade
At that time the Ottoman leaders considered it advantageous to encourage
the import of manufactured goods in order to create abundancein the
home market and to benefit their treasury with increased revenue
import duties were limited to 3 to 5 percent, which made
the Ottoman Empire a lucrative market for Western
manufactures

Perils of Proximity
Four features of this trading system were especially
onerous for the Ottoman Empire

1. The privilege granted to foreign merchants

resident in the empire to be tried in their own
consular courts according to the law codes of
their own countries
2. No foreigner could be arrested or held by
Turkish police unless an official from his
consulate was present.
3. The capitulatory treaties also exempted
foreigners from internal levies or taxes, so that
they were able to conduct local business at less
expense than could the native citizens
themselves.
4. The abuse of the capitulatory system was its

Shifting Trade Routes

The Ottoman Empire was particularly vulnerable to
the West's expanding economy not only because of
geographic closeness but also because of the empire's
unique dependence on transit trade

The entire Middle East traditionally had profited by

serving as the funnel through which flowed the
ancient trade between Asia and Europe, both
overland across central Asia, and overseas through
the Mediterranean,
The exchange of goods provided government
revenues in the form of customs duties, and also a
source of livelihood for thousands of merchats,
clerks, sailors, shipbuilders, camel drivers,
stevedores.

Shifting Trade Routes

dependence on long-range interregional trade
was risky because it could be shut off or bent by
distant political and military disturbances that
could not be controlled
the rise of the great Mongol Empire in the
thirteenth century greatly enhanced overland
trade by providing security across the vast
expanse of Eurasian steppes
the rapid disintegration of this empire in the
fourteenth century blocked the overland routes
and damaged the economies of Persia and Asia
Minor through which these routes had crossed.

Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape and sailed into

Calicut Harbor, India, on May 22, 1498
The Cape route was longer but cheaper than the
old routes through the Middle East
. The Cape route avoided the cost of the several
loadings and unloadings, of the customs duties
at various points along the way,
the Middle East became an vague backwater
rather than the center of global trade that it had
been before da Gama

Levant Companies
The change of trade routes was the appearance of
the Levant companies
It was not the Ottoman merchants who organized
large joint stock companies for trade with
Western Europe
it was the French, English and Dutch who
organized their respective Levant companies and
exploited the resources of the Ottoman Empire
The first were the French, who negotiated a
treaty in 1535 permitting them to reside and
trade in the Ottoman Empire without being
subject to Ottoman taxation or to the jurisdiction
of Ottoman courts.
The special privileges were further extended to Dutch and
English in 1583

Westerners established their joint stock companies

as instruments for economic mobilization and
penetration.
They limited the responsibility of investors and
separating the functions of investing and of
management
They made possible the mobilization of large
amounts of capital for commercial ventures in
specific regions such as the Levant or Africa or
the East Indies
Ottoman merchants, by contrast, did not
organize such companies, preferring to trade as
individuals or in private partnership
The commercial predominance of the Levant
companies also was based on the technological
superiority of their home industries

 Ottoman industry remained at the handicraft

stage in technology and at the union stage in
organization.
Ottoman officials supported the traditional guild
structure, fearing that innovations would produce
disorder and deprive the treasury of revenue.
Ottoman administrative and military officials
preferred to deal with the old associations in
order to ensure stability in the price and quality
of goods.
The native craftsmen and merchants worked and
operated in little shops built along narrow and
little streets, and sometimes roofed over, street
and all, to form the low, confused buildings
known as bazaars

The impact of the Levant companies was emphasized

by the flood of New World bullion, which caused sharp
price increases in Western Europe in the midsixteenth century
By the 1580s the Ottoman economy also was experiencing
inflation
The Levant companies were paying for the foodstuffs and
raw materials they were obtaining from the Ottoman lands
in part with bullion
European silver coins also inundated the Ottoman market,
causing severe inflation
It is significant that between 1550 and 1600 the price of
wheat rose approximately five times in the Ankara region
of central Anatolia as against ten times in the Aegean
coastal area, where Western merchants bought their
cargoes
The bullion did not remain in the Sultan's domains.
Instead, it was exchanged for the spices and the fine
fabrics that were brought in across the eastern

Ottoman Peripheral Status

Sultan Murad IV's adviser, Koja Beg, submitted in 1640 a
memorandum analyzing the crisis of the empire.
He stressed the disintegration of the timar system, which
led .to the shift of deserving warriors and officials in favor
of mercenaries and usurers
Corruption and venality spread to all branches of public
life, and the oppressed populace was driven to lawlessness
Since the time of Suleiman had neglected their duties,
failing to attend the meetings of their divans and listening
instead to court rumors and harem conspiracies
The decline of the established Ottoman social and
economic order began as the result of developments
entirely outside the area dominated, and in particular as a
consequence of the establishment in Western Europe of an
"Atlantic economy" of tremendous strength and force
The economic system of the Empire decayed neither
through a flaw inherent in its constitution, nor through an
organic law, but because of immense historical changes

ASIA AN EXTERNAL AREA

Asia in the pre-nineteenth-century period remained an external
area in relation to the global market economy
It did not become either an integrated region, as did Eastern
Europe and Latin America, or a peripheral area, as did Africa
and the Middle East.
Reason for the difference was location, the enormous
distances separating South Asia and East Asia from Western
Europe
Reason for the separateness of Asia was its high level of
economic development, which made its ancient civilizations
largely self-sufficient and uninterested in the relatively
worthless offerings of Western merchants.
The great land empires of the Moguls in India and of the Ming and Ch'ing
dynasties in China were militarily powerful, so that it was out of the
question for Western merchants and adventurers to fight their way in.

ASIA AN EXTERNAL AREA

Europeans enjoyed decisive naval superiority,
which enabled them to dominate the newly opened
global trade routes of commerce.

Asia Before da Gama

For millennia prior to the appearance of da Gama in the Indian Ocean- commerce
had imitated to the pace of the monsoon winds
-The northeast monsoon blows from about October to March, and
the southwest monsoon from May or June to September From East
Africa to the East Indies
- the "season" for trade from Gujarat to Aden was from
September to May, and from Aden to Malabar it was October to
February.
- Sailing eastward from Gujarat to Malacca, Indians ships would
leave from January onward, and return by the end of May.
Malacca was the meeting place for traders from the western
regions of the Indian Ocean sailing in on monsoon wind
- Traders from the northeast or China seas arriving with the trade
winds
- The merchants from the northeast were mostly Chinese, while
those arriving from the west were mostly Muslims of Arab,
Indian, Persian or Turkish ethnic origin.

 Western histories stress the trade in spices

that originated in the East Indies and ended
up, via Muslim and Italian middlemen, in
European households
A much larger volume of trade was conducted
on many other routes or laps
Trade conducted between the Persian Gulf
and India, East Africa and India, the Persian
Gulf and East Africa, India and Malacca,
Malacca and the East Indies and between
Malacca and China.

 Indian Traditional Trading system

- the Asian merchants, regardless of their ethnic or
religious background, enjoyed full autonomy while trad
ing in the various Indian Ocean port.
In towns, the foreign merchants usually lived in
defined districts with fellow merchants from the same
place of origin
Since most of the ports derived little of economic
value from their locality
Locals or natives were dependent on the foreign
merchants for their prosperity.
.The rulers made every effort to provide favorable
conditions for the conduct of tradenamely,
reasonable taxes, religious toleration and freedom
from arbitrary injustice.
The local rulers allowed the merchants full autonomy

- The merchants paid customs duties, usually about 6 percent ad

valorem, plus certain presents
- The revenues from the customs duties were the mainstays of
most Indian Ocean ports, and to assure the uninterrupted flow of
these revenues
- The merchants normally were allowed to carry on their
operations with security and autonomy
- During the first half of the fifteenth century the Chinese had
sent into the Indian Ocean a number of expeditions that were
most impressive in size and technological sophistication
- The Chinese junks were much larger than the Muslim or West
European ships of the time.
- remarkable Chinese expeditions were suddenly halted by
imperial fiat in 1433.

- Chinese merchants lacked the political power and social status of

their Western counterparts
- Chinese merchants and industrialists organized themselves into
local unions headed by chiefs, but these guild chiefs were
certified by the government, which held them responsible for the
conduct of individual members
- The government controlled the production and distribution of
basic commodities such as salt and iron, which were necessities
for the entire population
- Western cities were becoming bases for merchant power and
activism, Chinese cities were dominated by the imperial military
and bureaucracy
- Western merchants, in partnership with their national monarchs,
took the lead in overseas enterprise, the Chinese merchants were
powerless to contest the imperial decision to end the remarkable
Ming expeditions

The Chinese withdrawal left a power vacuum in the Indian Ocean

The individual Muslim traders plying between the various ports
were no match for either the departing Chinese supported by
oncoming Portuguese, ready and commissioned by the Lisbon
royal court
The Portuguese quickly imposed their domination on the great
trade area between East Africa and Malacca
It was the Portuguese who fought and traded their way to China,
rather than the Chinese to Europe, represented a basic turning
point in the course of Third World history.

Portugal's Sea Empire

The breakthrough to the Indian Ocean occurred
accidentally in 1487
Bartholomeu Dias, while probing along the coast,
was caught by a windstorm that blew his ships
south for thirteen days out of sight of land. When
the wind moderated, Dias observed land to the east
On July 8, 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon
in East Africa, where he picked up a famous Arab
pilot, Ahmad-Ibn-Madjid, who guided him across the
Indian Ocean, which he reached at the end of May
1498.
The Portuguese proceeded to take measures to
monopolize all commerce along the new Cape route
and in the Indian Ocean

Portugal's Sea Empire

By the departure of chinese half a century earlier,
thus creating a power vacuum in the Indian Ocean
that the Portuguese promptly filled.
The reason Portugues were able to fill it was the superiority of
their naval power
Success of Portuguese was the ability of the Portu guese to
execute troop drills rather than depending on the individual
performance of the ships comprising the troop
The e Muslims had no comparable power
Their ships not being designed to carry heavy armaments, and
their seamen accustomed to fighting near coasts, where they
usually had fought off attacks from the sea

Portugal's Sea Empire

Muslim rulers were almost invariably landlubbers
One of the reason of the triumph of the Portuguese was
their incomparable audacity and aggressiveness
. Religious fanaticism entered into this fierce
aggressiveness, especially when the Portuguese,
with their crusading traditions, encountered their
hated old enemies, the Muslims
It was the real combination of wealth-seeking and
religious passion that made both the Portuguese and the
Spaniards so effective in their overseas enterprises
The Portuguese owed much of their success to the
hopeless fragmentation of the Indian Ocean societies they
encountered
There was the division among Muslims between the
Sunnites and the Shiites, so that Portugal found an ally in
Shiite Persia against Sunnite Turkey

Portugal's Sea Empire

There was also the enmity between Muslims and Hindus, which
Portugal exploited to good advantage in India and in Indonesia
basic reason for Asian fragmentation and fragility was the social
structure
Portuguese were dealing with societies in which the operative
ties were horizontal rather than vertical
The masses were members of one or more autonomous groups
rather than subjects governed by provincial or imperial rulers
These groups were religious orders; assorted crafts; villages
with their panchayats and za-mindars
The resident foreign merchantsPortuguese, English, Dutch,
Turkish, Armenian and Persianwho lived in their own
neighborhoods, selected their own leaders, settled their own
disputes and buried their dead in their own cemeteries

 Few contacts existed between the various lower groups and the
upper ruling group- comprising the Mo gul emperor, the
provincial sultan, the nobles, the bureaucrats and the military
chiefs
Portuguese justified their actions with the rationalization that
the common law making the seas available to all applied only in
Europe to Christian
Portuguese claimed that Hindus and Muslims had no claim to
right of passage in Asian waters because before the arrival of
the Portuguese no one had claimed the sea as hereditary or
conquered property

East India Companies Exile of the Portuguese

The superior naval power of the Dutch and British companies
provided protection against both pirates and the Portuguese
The financial resources enabled them to influence the market
not only in order to maximize their immediate income but also
to reduce price fluctuations
The superior efficiency of the East India companies
automatically dried up the old Middle East trade routes
East India company successfully preserved their independence
against governmental intervention.
the Dutch turned against the British.
The outcome of the struggle for monopoly started.
Dutch had five times as many ships, and they had built a
thread of forts that gave them control of the key points in the
Indonesian archipelago.

 Dutch East India Company required treaties with local

rulers, treaties led to alliances, and alliances led to
colonies
In contrast to the Dutch in Indonesia, the British
operated in India only on sufferance of the powerful
Mogul emperors.

Europeans in East Asia

European merchants in China and Japan were fully as
submissive
Portuguese were the first Westerners to reach China by sea
when they sailed into Canton in 1513
- They received a cool welcome, as the ruler of Malacca, who
recognized Chinese suzerainty
- By 1557 the Portuguese were able to secure the right to
establish a warehouse and a settlement at Macao
- The Portuguese purchased Chinese silks, wood carvings,
porcelain, gold,
- they sold cloves and stick from the East Indies, sandal wood
from Timor, drugs and dyes from Java and cinnamon, pepper
and ginger from India

Europeans in East Asia

The Spaniards coming from the Philippines, which they had conquered
by 1571 with the capture of the city of Manila
The Chinese Empire did not prove as vulnerable as the Aztec and the
Inca
b the Spaniards did succeed in developing a profitable trade, es
pecially because Manila became a center for Chinese shipping and for
a large resident Chinese population
Dutch were the next to appear on China's coast in 1622 to drive the
Portuguese out of Macao
In failing to do so, the Dutch sailed to Taiwan, where they built a fort,
which developed a lucrative trade with China, Japan and the
Philippines.
the British East India Company was permitted to establish a factory at
Canton in 1685

Europeans in East Asia

British conducted Business through the so-called Hong
merchants, a monopoly guild of Chinese businessmen invested
with the full powers of the Peking government and acting as
its agent
- The life of the British at the Canton factory was strictly
regulated by the Chinese
- No women were allowed into the factory, no British could
use sedan chairs, they were not allowed to enter the city or to row
on the river for pleasure and they could not communicate directly
with the imperial commissioner

Asia an External Area

Asia prior to the nineteenth century had not been integrated
into the capitalist world order, and therefore was not a
participant in interregional mass trade
The demand for Asian products, by contrast, was
comparatively inelastic and limited. Spices
The inelastic demand was even more true of other Asian
commodities such as porcelain, silks, jewelry and wallpaper.
A second reason for the far smaller volume of trade with Asia
than with the New World was the lack of Asian demand for
European goods
Europe did not solve this problem of trade with Asia until
Europe developed power machinery at the end of the
eighteenth century

Asia an External Area

In 1600 the total trade between Asia and Europe
amounted to only about ten thousand tons each
way, and its annual value was about one million
pounds
In 1751 Britain imported three fourths as much
from the one island of Jamaica as from the whole
of Asia