Op-Ed Columnist

Is Islam the Problem?

Published: March 5, 2011

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

A wise visitor from outer space who dropped in on Earth a millennium agomight have assumed that the Americas would eventually be colonized notby primitive Europeans but by the more advanced Arab civilization — andthat as a result we Americans would all be speaking Arabic today.

Yet after about 1200, the Middle East took a long break: it stagnatedeconomically, and today it is marked by high levels of illiteracy andautocracy. So as the region erupts in protests seeking democracy, abasic question arises: What took so long? And, a politically incorrectquestion: Could the reason for the Middle East’s backwardness be Islam?

The sociologist Max Weber and other scholars have argued that Islam isinherently a poor foundation for capitalism, and some have pointed inparticular to Islamic qualms about paying interest on loans.

But that doesn’t seem right. Other experts note that Islam in some waysis more pro-business than other major religions. The Prophet Muhammadwas a successful merchant and much more sympathetic to the wealthy thanJesus was. And the Middle East was a global center of culture andcommerce in, say, the 12th century: if Islam stifles business now, whydidn’t it then?

As for hostility toward interest on loans, similar teachings are foundin Jewish and Christian texts, and what the Koran bans isn’t interest assuch but “riba,” an extreme form of usury that could lead toenslavement for failing to pay debts. Until the late 18th century,Muslims were as likely to be money-lenders in the Middle East asChristians or Jews. And today paying interest is routine even in themost conservative Muslim countries.

Many Arabs have an alternative theory about the reason for the region’sbackwardness: Western colonialism. But that seems equally specious andhas the sequencing wrong. “For all its discontents, the Middle East’scolonial period brought fundamental transformation, not stagnation;rising literacy and education, not spreading ignorance; and enrichmentat unprecedented rates, not immiserization,” writes Timur Kuran, a DukeUniversity economic historian, in a meticulously researched new book,“The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.”

Professor Kuran’s book offers the best explanation yet for why theMiddle East has lagged. After poring over ancient business records,Professor Kuran persuasively argues that what held the Middle East backwasn’t Islam as such, or colonialism, but rather various secondaryIslamic legal practices that are no longer relevant today.

It’s a sophisticated argument that a column can’t do justice to, but forexample, one impediment was inheritance law. Western systems mostcommonly passed all property intact to the eldest son, thus preservinglarge estates. In contrast, Islamic law stipulated a much fairerdivision of assets (including some to daughters), but this meant thatlarge estates fragmented. One upshot was that private capitalaccumulation faltered and couldn’t support major investments to usher inan industrial revolution.

Professor Kuran also focuses on the Islamic partnership, which tended tobe the vehicle for businesses. Islamic partnerships dissolved wheneverany member died, and so they tended to include only a few partners —making it difficult to compete with European industrial and financialcorporations backed by hundreds of shareholders.

The emergence of banks in Europe led long-term British interest rates todrop by two-thirds leading up to the Industrial Revolution. No suchdrop occurred in the Arab world until the colonial period.

These traditional impediments are no longer a problem in the 21stcentury. Muslim countries now have banks, corporations, and stock andbond markets, and inheritance law now isn’t an obstacle to capitalaccumulation. So if Professor Kuran’s diagnosis is correct, that shouldbode well for the region — and Turkey’s boom in recent years underscoresthe potential for a renaissance.

Yet one challenge is psychological. Many Arabs blame outsiders for theirbackwardness, and cope by rejecting modernity and the outside world.It’s a disgrace that an area that once produced outstanding science andculture (giving us words like algebra) now is an educationalunderachiever, especially for girls.

The crisis in the Arab world provides a chance for a new start. I hopewe’ll have some tough, honest conversations on all sides about what wentwrong — as a starting point for a new and more hopeful trajectory.

The Muslim Brotherhood has often used the slogan, “Islam is thesolution.” And to the West, the unstated feeling upon looking across thebleak Middle East landscape has often been: “Islam is the problem.”Professor Kuran’s research suggests that, at least looking forward, themore correct view is: Islam isn’t the problem and it isn’t the solution,it’s simply a religion — meaning that the break is over, there are noexcuses, and it’s time to move forward again.