Running Head Structural Change
Maya Shatzmiller
The University of Western Ontario, Canada
STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE ISLAMIC
MIDDLE EAST 700-1500: POPULATION LEVELS AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
Abstract
In recent years, blamed Islamic institutions, Islamic law and culture, for the current
underdevelopment of the Middle East. According to European economic historians Islamic
institutions were, and are, ‘growth retarding’, ‘averse to change’, ‘path dependent’, ‘lacking
creative destruction’, ‘extractive’ rather than ‘inclusive’. This paper challenges this view by
pointing to its unhistorical methodology and nonfactual assessment of Islamic institutions. Two
changes in economic structures are investigated empirically and methodologically. The first, a
demographic transition, a shift from high to low population level, the second, a change in
property rights regime from common to individual. The paper argues that Islamic institutions,
legal, cultural and economic, enabled these structural changes to exercise their potential as
growth stimulators.
I. Introduction: Concept and Methodology in the Investigation of structural change and
economic development of the Middle East
Economists know what blocks economic development in the contemporary Middle East:
lack of support of intellectual freedoms, lack of the rule of law, lack of citizenship rights, lack of
entrepreneurship and markets, as well as lack of attention to the multitude of national
experiences are obstacles to economic development. Yet, the science of economics has still to
deliver a remedy to what ails the Middle East, while economic history has not been very helpful
either by supplementing the past for the present. Although the literature has certainly grown in
recent years from a trickle to a torrent, somehow all historical studies end with the same
conclusion: Islamic economic institutions were, and are, inefficient and growth retarding, averse
to change, path dependent, lacking ‘creative destruction’, ‘extractive’ rather than ‘inclusive’.
Whether it is done through the lenses of the New Institutional Economics, (NIE), or economics
of religion, or the economics of culture, or yet the economics of minorities and ethnicity, all that
economic historians could do is continue to embrace the belittling spirit of the 19th century
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2
philosophers: poverty, underdevelopment, decline and lack of progress is “Islamic” in nature. 1
European economic historians concluded that the failure of the contemporary Middle East have
its roots in the failure of past Islamic economic institutions.
All the while, investigation of Middle East economic history is using a skewed
methodology. Economic historians writing on the Middle East use a basic second-hand general
narrative of the Middle East, and apply to it the most sophisticated theoretical and quantitative
approaches in their arsenal. In all fairness, some European historians are aware of the faulty
methodology, “Many explanations for Europe’s rise and the Islamic world’s stagnation have
been posited in the largely narrative, theoretical economic history literature… “attempts to
empirically back up these hypotheses are few.” 2 Surely, the lack of empirical evidence in these
accounts, coupled with disregard and careless misinterpretation of data to suite a preconceived
idea, will not be tolerated in other circumstances. Surely, economic history journals will never
publish articles employing such flawed methodology in the investigation of Europe’s economic
history! Both the concept and the methodology of this approach are ill conceived. It is scholarly
dishonest and frankly harmful to blame medieval institutions for causing contemporary
economic backwardness by being incompatible with economic growth. Worst, it is factually
incorrect. As this paper will demonstrate, nothing is further from what the evidence suggests.
Islamic economic institutions were formed during a period of economic resurgence, they did not
inhibit a dynamic growth process and instead, contributed, facilitated and enhanced growth. An
empirically based investigation of changes in economic structures concurrent with the
Islamization and Arab settlement of the Middle East demonstrate the point. These were changes
in population levels and a transition to low fertility rate, and a structural change to property
rights, from common to individual property rights.
Before presenting the evidence, a few general comments are warranted. The backdrop to
this paper is a Middle East economic resurgence attested to through economic indicators of
change, to which I drew attention in previous publications. These indicators include changes to
labour and technology,3 and to urbanization and the monetary system.4 There were geo-political
1 There is no point nor room here to revisit this material. I reviewed the literature and the
arguments in previous occasions. Shatzmiller, 2011 and Shatzmiller, 2018a.
2 Bosker, Buringh and Van Zanden, 2013, p. 1419:
3 Shatzmiller, 1994
4 Shatzmiller, 2017a.
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economic advantages that benefited the economy that came with the new Islamic rule and
delayed resurgence in ninth-thirteenth century Europe. 5 Thanks to series of standardizations, the
benefit of the structural changes that took place in the centre, in the Middle East, travelled
quickly to the rest of the Arab Empire. There, in Iberia, North Africa and the lands to the North
East, economic institutions and tools facilitated resurgence in the provinces. Interaction between
the center and the peripheries was enhanced and enhancing, something that their European
contemporaries, the Carolingians, could not achieve.6 Local pools of knowledge also survived
better in the Middle East than in Europe, enhancing technological innovations. The.
standardizations in religious expressions, language, script, literacy tools, weights and measures
and law, made transaction technology more efficient and growth accommodating. Early change
that occurred in the regions known for higher agricultural productivity, Iraq and Egypt, generated
higher incomes, more demand for consumer goods and new preferences in food and clothing and
benefitted manufacturing and trade. 7 These were instrumental in the Smithian growth that was
visible in the eleventh century.
Technology and rational economic decisions are one aspect painfully missing from the
debate about the Islamic institutions. Like Europe, the regions conquered by the Arabs were not
unfamiliar with technological achievements of previous generations. Some regions of the Middle
East were previously incorporated into the Roman empire while other benefitted from
technological developments under the Sasanians, such as development in irrigation techniques,
for example. The regions to the North-East that fell to Islam, were linked through the silk trade
routes to technological innovations from China and plants from India. Traders brought their
financial instruments and knowledge of calculation with them. The translation movement of
Greek sciences to Arabic in the ninth century confirmed the existence not only of a society,
culturally rich and technology savvy but also the availability of investigative tools. Christians,
Jews and pagans transmitted pool of theoretical knowledge that encouraged technological
innovation, and with no church dogma to interfere with knowledge acquisition Muslims from all
regions engaged in scientific investigation. Indeed, technological innovation picked up early and
everywhere. As early as the end of the 8th for example, technology of houseware production
5 Persson and Sharp, 2015.
6 For the Carolingians and Islam, Sénac, 2006.
7 On technological innovations in agriculture, Watson, 1983.
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changed with a switch from the use of mineral alkali to plant ashes in glass and soap making.
Plants readily available at the desert margin, the Arabic ushnān, replaced the alkali needed as
flux in the glass production and were cheaper than the minerals and lowered the melting
temperature thus cutting production costs. 8 The discovery of Arabic paper, making paper from
cheaply available linen rags, made paper cheaper, available for use in writing and accounting. 9
As will be argued below, much of the technological innovation was a response to chronic labour
shortages in the Middle East, although the same conditions in medieval Europe did not yet delays
in Europe were blamed on the failure to retrieve and advance technological legacy.10
Making rational economic decisions is an integral part of economic growth, and
capitalism did not leave the Mediterranean with the end of the Roman Empire. The Umayyad
administration’s intervened to ensure that the mints in the conquered regions did not shut down
and continued to function, contributing to the maintenance of monetary circulation and increase
money supply.11 The Samanid administration’s decision to develop the rich silver mines under
their control in tenth century Uzbekistan and North-Eastern Iran, was instrumental in forcing
trade to pass through their territories. Using their geographic advantages to develop an economic
edge over Baghdad through their superior coinage, they forced traders to exchange their goods
through their cities.12 The shift in trade routes benefitted the mining industry and favoured
commercialization. Urbanization picked up steam drawing labour from the countryside and a
new class of artisans emerged. Rise in agricultural productivity fuelled by technological
innovation, efficient labour markets and manufacturing, growth in human capital made the
service industry grow accordingly.13 Not all changes were beneficial to economic development.
Land ownership, for instance, remained with the central government and did not become free
private in spite of individual property rights. Peasants and farmers in Egypt, for instance, did not
8 The alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān d. probably 815 who was identified by Sarton as the introducer
of manganese dioxide as colourant. Heidemann, 2006, p. 35.
9 Shatzmiller, 2018b.
10 Comparative discussion of growth in Findaly & Lundahl. The revival of the Roman heavy
plough, Andersen et al. 2016.
11 Walmsley, 2010. “…the remarkable feature of coin production in the 7th-8th centuries was the
multiplication of towns that minted coins when compared to late Roman practices,” p. 23.
12 See al-Muqaddasi, 1994, p. 285 for analysis of the goods coming from the North-East into
Baghdad. We are comparatively well informed on mining technology and production. See
Morony, 2019; Power, 2012; Rosenberger, 1970.
13 Shatzmiller, 1994, 2013.
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own their land, a pattern that endured until the 19th century, “Since land could normally not be
bought and sold, nor leased or pledged, there was no market price of land and no market rental of
land services.” 14 Peasants property rights were limited to cultivate a particular piece of land in
their village. Disruptive factors were political and included Bedouin invasions, ambitious
renegade military officers, local urban factions.
Throughout the discussion of structural changes in the early medieval Middle East
economic theory is present by its use in the analysis of the empirical evidence of economic
development in comparative studies. For example, it is central to the first structural change in the
demographics to conceptualize it as Malthusianism. Bruce Campbell offered a useful
comparative context to the question of why population level provides only a temporary relief
from Malthusian equilibrium and post-Malthusian recovery, so that discussing the Middle East
using its methodological approach and investigative framework is beneficial. 15 We use the
literature to argue that post-Malthusian population growth and growth theory clarify the
uniqueness of the Middle East in this respect. Most societies with post-Malthusian economic
growth episodes failed in exiting Malthusian regime, so it is essential to show how the Middle
East differed. Our quantitative data is insufficient to follow or be inserted into the European data
but we do employ quantitative methodologies in a different environment, relying instead on more
qualitative evidence. In the end, much depends on our ability to properly understand and
interpret the significance of the demographic transition.
II. Population Level and Demographic Transition
Middle East population estimates vary considerably, whether we talk about the total of
the Arab Empire, or of an individual region. 16 For example, estimates for Egypt, the region with
the best available data, present a blurred picture:
POPULATION ESTIMATES FOR EGYPT 800-1000
14 That was going to remain a pattern in Egypt. Hansen, 1983, p. 475.
15 Malthus, 1976; On the classic Malthusian regime, and Neo-Malthusian theories, Abramitzky
and Braggion, 2004. On Malthusian trap in growth episodes, North, 1981, pp. 69-186; Livi-
Bacci, 2012, pp. 82-105. In the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions, Cipolla, 1962, pp.17-32;
Allen, 2001. In growth theory, Galor and Weil, 2000. On Medieval Europe’s long period of
population decline, Persson and Sharp, 2015, p. 33.
16 Findlay and Lundahl, 2006, provide a useful summary.
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We rely on estimates from three studies devoted to the demographics: the canonical articles by
Russell, 17 the Atlas of world population by McEvedy and Jones,18 and an article by Issawi.19
These were used and discussed by Findlay and Lundahl authors of a seminal paper on the impact
of the plague on economic development.20 As can be seen from the chart it is impossible to
derive a conclusive demographic trend for Egypt, or the Middle East for that matter based on
these estimates. Our analysis of the demographic trajectory of the medieval Middle East will take
the estimates into consideration but in conjunction with an independent empirical body of
qualitative and qualitative evidence as well as theory. I present the evidence in four sections, the
first establishes a pre-Islamic Malthusian phase in the Middle East with a sixth century peak in
cultivation and settlement expansion. The second section explores the stages of population
decline, beginning with the first visitation of the bubonic plague in 541, followed by plague
recurrences. The third, deals with the early labour shortages and the administration attempts to
alleviate them. Settlement priorities, calling for immigration and slave imports, were the policies
used. The fourth section deals with the adoption of voluntary birth control by Muslims and
suggests that it was already in reaction to the resulting economic benefits, such as raised incomes
and rising expectations. It will be argued here that our evidence suggests a trend of from high to
low with the ninth century recovery that due to various reproductive strategies kept population in
check. As a result, post-Malthusian gains were maintained.
17 Russell, 1958, 1966, 1972,
18 McEvedy and Jones, 1978
19 Issawi, 1981
20 Fidlay and Lundahl, 2006.
0
1,000,000
2,000,000
3,000,000
4,000,000
5,000,000
6,000,000
Russell M&J Issawi
800 A.D 1000 A.D
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Egypt’s population estimates were used here because Egypt played a significant role in
the economic recovery of the Middle East after the plague, but also because Egypt as well as Iraq
have settlement patterns that easily show expansion and retraction. The picture derived from
archeological studies we can see that both Egypt and Iraq experienced a Malthusian a peak in the
sixth century. 21 Both regions experienced a remarkable expansion in the cultivated area, in
settlement, cities and villages, with every land surface suitable cultivated and an urban economy
to boot. Wars, famines, diseases, earthquakes and climate change, the usual of positive checks,
were manifested as well.22 While a Malthusian phase is easier to demonstrate through archeology
in the two-river irrigated agricultural economies, it is more complicated in the case of Syria-
Palestine. There agriculture is typically Mediterranean, based on rain fed grains and hills planted
with olive trees and wines and population that is more sparsely located.23 Yet, even in Arabia,
which is even less susceptible to archeology, demographers believe that a Malthusian crisis
occurred there as well before the Islamic conquest of the Middle East.24
Despite the doubts expressed by historians of Late Antiquity about the severity of the
Justinian plague, the literary evidence pointing to a major population decline is undeniable after
the first visitation of 541.25 With the scientific confirmation of the strain found in the Middle
East as a Bubonic plague, the absence of mass graves is non-consequential.26 The population
continued to decline with plague recurrences visiting the now Islamic Middle East, labour
shortages became a major preoccupation of the administration. It is estimated that between the
seventh and the ninth centuries the Middle East lost about 50% of its population.27 The numbers
below illustrate the severity of the impact.
Table 1
Number of Plague Victims sixth-ninth century
21 Adams, 1965 for Iraq; Alston, 2001 for Egypt.
22 Morony, 2004, p. 172-175.
23 Fuks and al. 2017 with extensive bibliography.
24 Pellat, 1971. McEvedy and Jones, 1978, pp. 144-148.
25 On the Justinian Plague and recurrences in the Middle East see Conrad, 1981a and 1981b.
McCormick, 2019. Compare Jongman, 2011 for Rome; Jordan, 1996 for pre-plague France.
Findaly and Lundhal, 2006; Pamuk and Shatzmiller, 2014.
26 Wagner et al. 2014. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-
3099(13)70323-2/abstract?_eventId=login#back-cor1
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/28/plague-victims-shed-light-disease-origins
27 On the Justinian Plague and recurrences in the Middle East see Conrad, 1981a and 1981b.
McCormick, 2019.
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Date (C.E.) Estimated No. of Deaths Location
541-543 5,000-16,000/day Constantinople
541-543 majority of population Egypt
541-543
Entire villages and towns
depopulated Palestine
557-558 35,000 in three months Amida
Mid 6th-Mid 8th c
Population repeatedly
decimated Levant
743-744 600,000 in one month Bostra and Hawran
743-744 100,000 Mesopotamia
773-774 1,000/day
Lower Mesopotamia
(Mawsil)
841-843 500/day Ramla
841-843 Many villages deserted
Mesopotamia to Syria and the
coast
841-843 1/3 of population Palestine
Source: Morony, 2007.
Given Malthusian pressure in Arabia and population decline in the Middle East it is
understandable that settlement began even before the conquest was completed. Soldiers were
told to settle in Iraq as early as 636 and other immigrants from Arabia were directed to settle in
cities, first in the garrison cities of Kūfa and Basra, and in 640 ordered all the way up to
Mawsil.28 In Egypt, where the Muslim administration prohibited the settlement of soldiers, the
need for manpower was unrelenting. Between 641 and 776 the government tried to redress the
shortage of labour by returning fugitives to their villages and forcing land tenure on them.
Bedouin tribes’ who migrated first to Syria, were sent to Egypt in 673. 29 Similar evidence of
government’s involvement in settlement comes from the Northern frontier, where the Umayyad
administration continued the policy of settling Arab soldiers in garrison cities, ribāts, along the
28 Morony, 1981; Lapidus, 1981.
29 Sijpesteijn, 2013, p. 7.
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Byzantine frontier, the thughūr.30 In 717 the Umayyad Caliph cUmar II issued a call for
immigration to the Arabian tribes:
“The Prophet has said, the gate of emigration, (al-higra), should be opened to all the
people of al-Islam… we open it up to whosoever may emigrate of the Bedouin, and who sells his
cattle and removes from his Bedouin abode to the abode of emigration…”31
The invitation extended by the new Islamic state to immigrants to come to the Middle
East is similar to what we would expect on basis of migration theory, naming the State as
‘labour-recruiter’, and using the ‘push-pull’ theory. 32The ‘push’ factors, the demographic
pressure at home, the lack of resources in the desert already lacking resources, the low income
and low living standards, the lack of economic opportunities, were all typical of societies that
engage in migration. The Middle East displays the ‘pull’ factors as well, demand for labour,
availability of land, good economic opportunities, all offered by the new location.
The government did not stop there. With natural growth flattened by plague recurrences,
and demand for manpower in both rural and urban areas constant, import of slaves may have
presented a potential solution to labour shortages. Provenance was a logistic hurdle, though.
Slaves in sufficient numbers could only come from regions unaffected by the plague, namely
Black Africa, Central Asia, and North-Eastern Europe. 33 Indeed, the Arabic sources are very
clear as to provenance of the slaves, those referred to as saqāliba, reflect a Slavonic origin,
different from generic slaves, ‘abd, or Black slaves, Zanj, or Turkic slaves, Atrāk.34 Estimates of
the number of slaves arriving in the Middle East between 650-1500 are for 6 million from Africa
and several millions from central Asia.35 However, their impact on labour markets remained
limited. Only two episodes in the Arabic sources refer to slaves in agricultural labour for the
entire medieval period. The first involved Black slaves in Iraq, the Zanj, the other, slaves in
30 Ager, 2008; von Sivers, 1982. The pattern of the Ribāt settlement is also known from Islamic
Central Asia. de la Vaissière, 2008.
31 Gibb, 1955.
32 Castles and Miller, 1998, pp. 19-47 for survey of the literature.
33 On these and related aspects of medieval slavery, Fynn-Paul, 2009. On slave imports in the
Middle East, Amitai and Cluse, eds. 2017.
34 McCormick, 2001, p. 737, n. 44 and pp. 738-740. The Slav/slave etymology, which
McCormick traced to the ninth century, surfaced in Arabic at the same time
35 Clarence-Smith, 2006. pp. 11-16.
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North Africa.36 European historians overstated the impact and role of an assumed slaves’ imports
from Western Europe to the Middle East crediting Muslims with the abolishment of slavery in
Europe and the end of gold coinage. None of this is substantiated by the Arabic sources.37
Military slavery in Islam is better represented in the sources and better investigated and
understood. 38 Recruiting soldiers as slaves which began by the Abbasid state as early as the
eighth century remained the only kind of slave recruitment undertaken by the State, the rest was
left in private hands. Turning military slaves to rulers in Egypt and Syria, thirteenth-sixteenth
century was a transformation in political structures.
As far as labour markets were concerned, slaves prices were determined by supply and
demand. Our data shows that slaves prices were high in the early centuries of Islamic rule but
declined afterwards signaling rising availability of local labour with population recovery. The
graph below demonstrates the trend.
Slaves Prices Seventh to Thirteenth Century in Gold Dinars
Source: Ashtor, 1969; Ragheb, 2002
We derive confirmation of the demographic trajectory we paint also from evidence of the trend
in wheat prices in Egypt. Egypt was the major wheat producer of the Mediterranean during
36 Popovic, 1976, Talbi, 1981.
37 Duby, 1974; McCormick, 2002 on the role of Islamic slave traders but see the paucity of
evidence for trade relations beyween Carolingian Europe and the Middle East in Sénac, 2006.
38 On early military slavery, Crone, 1980; Pipes, 1981, Gordon, 2001.
0
50
100
150
200
7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th
Pri
ce
Century
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Roman and Byzantine periods, so that the low prices during the first two centuries of Islamic rule
is indicative of low demand due to low population levels. With population recovery in the ninth
century, wheat prices began to rise, reaching a peak between the tenth-twelfth century.39
Wheat prices in Egypt 7th-13th century in Gold Dinars
Slaves do not appear on records as employed in manufacturing either and instead most
were involved in domestic service. As slavery in Islam became a one generation institution,
slaves did not reproduce in sufficient numbers to maintain the slave population. Their impact on
population levels occurred mainly through a lenient manumission mechanism. Islamic law
prohibited the enslavement of Muslims and encouraged their conversion and manumission once
in the abode of Islam. Manumission of one’s slaves was recommended as a charitable act, and
manumission documents commonly surface in the archives. 40 A slave ‘mother’, umm walad,
who bore a child to her master, would become free with her child, which meant that many
females were manumitted while young and in child bearing years. The practice stands in contrast
to the practice in Rome, where female slaves were not manumitted before they reached
menopause.41 Military slaves, as in the case of the Mamluk slaves of Egypt, whose numbers are
estimated in the tens of thousands, transitioned automatically as a group into Islam and freedom
and were subsequently incorporated into society.42
39 More on wheat prices in Egypt in Shatzmiller, 2018 and in Iraq in Shatzmiller, 2017a.
40 On manumission of slaves when held in partnership, Udovitch, 1970, pp. 113-115.
41 Scheidel, 1997.
42 Ayalon, 1985.
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th
Pri
ce
Century
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The most significant factor that played a role in maintaining low population levels in the
long-run, was the practice of voluntary birth control. The practice was thoroughly documented
by Basim Musallam in his book on the subject published in 1983. 43 His evidence is qualitative
but thorough and comprehensive, covering law, medicine, chronicles, and Arabic prose. 44 It
shows that ‘coitus interruptus’ or cazl, appeared early, that it was legally sanctioned and
authorized by the jurists of all schools, and that couples practiced it because they wanted to
avoid hardship to themselves and have children with better opportunities. 45 Musallam
convincingly argued that cazl, placed the responsibility for birth control on males, but noted that
the agreement of the wife was required to protect the rights of women to children. 46 He also
believes that the practice was associated with the Black Death being the epitome of ‘bad times’,
‘by which civilized people reacted to the political upheavals, insecurities in the cities and the
countryside’. Thus, in spite of its early mentions in hadiths, Musallam concluded that the
practice was a later occurrence, an outcome of the horrors of the Black Death and was specific to
Egypt and Syria.47 However, Musallam’s suggestion is challenged by the evidence itself. The
practice is discussed in the earliest traditions, the hadiths, in details in the early legal sources,
and appears in a final codified version in Islamic law, sharīca, complete by the 9th-10th centuries.
It is therefore most likely that the ‘bad times’ Muslims referred to were those caused by the
Justinian plague recurrences, not the Black Death and that when the Black Death appeared, the
practice was already well established. 48
It is nonetheless correct that the evidence we have of small families dates from the
fourteenth century, and that because of the proximity to the Black Death, needs to be treated with
caution. Probate inventories dating from 1390-1393 Mamluk Jerusalem revealed that the city had
a high rate of unmarried single women, divorced and widowed individuals and that statistically
58% of males and females had no children. 49 Huda Lutfi concluded that “Small families seem to
have been more common than larger ones. David Powers also found small families in fourteenth
43 Musallam, 1983.
44 Musallam, p. 109 and pp. 115-121.
45 Compare Blanc, 2019 for Europe.
46 Musallam, 1981, pp. 28-38 on the rights of women.
47 Musallam, 1983, pp.105-121.
48 Musallam, 1983.
49 Lutfi, 1985.
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century North Africa, “No family had more than three children and the average number of
children per family was 1,6.”50 Archival documents from 15th century Granada, dealing with
estate division also show small families, with one or two siblings inheriting. 51 Middle East
demographers noted the presence of small families in the medieval Middle East and drew the
following conclusions. Russell suggested that the average family in Egypt was about 3.5
persons,52 a number endorsed by Michael Dols as the average size of medieval household of 3,5
after the plague. 53 Lutfi concluded that “it was more common for families who had children to
have 1 or 2 rather than 3 or 4 so the average household is 2,7 which is lower than the 3,5 average
that Russell estimated for a medieval family.” 54 Two surviving children per urban household
may seem low to the modern observer but in view of what we know about voluntary birth
control, in addition to the levels of infant mortality in the urban areas of the medieval Middle
East, two children per couple, appears to be a reasonable number. There is no way to know how
effective was the practice. It might have been as ineffective as the array of herbs and potions
suggested by the medical literature to prevent conception, or the “taboos, infanticide, and various
other means”, suggested by North.55 This is not to distract from the weight of the evidence
collected by Musallam nor from the conclusion that may be drawn. We can now add new
evidence of rising standards of living and rising household income as additional plausible
reasons for the practice.
Both growth theory and comparative studies, postulate that the presence of higher
incomes, higher living standards, human capital and growing expectations, need to be considered
reasons for the practice of voluntary birth control. Becker and Galor suggest that in households
with higher incomes and standards of living, parents would opt to have fewer children in favor of
‘better ones’ that could benefit from higher education and better remuneration. 56 The rise in
living standards in the medieval Middle East, as well as the rise and spread of education and
literacy, is evidence that cannot be disregarded as support to the practise. We are able now to
50 Powers, 1990, p. 241.
51 Shatzmiller, 2007, pp. 1-6. Kedar’s and estimate of household of 8 is untenable
52 Russell, 1965, p. 72.
53 Dols, 1981, p. 402; Musallam, 1983, pp. 106-107
54 Lutfi, 1985, p. 256
55 North, 1981, p.85.
56 Becker, 1960; Galor, 2011; Livi-Bacci, 2012, pp. 34-41.
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quantitatively substantiate an assumed rise in incomes and in living standards in the early e
Middle East in the aftermath of the Plague and recurrences. 57 Wages paid to unskilled labour in
Iraq and Egypt were two or three times the subsistence level during the eighth-tenth centuries,
but when compared to wages paid to skilled labour, they appear minimal. they show clearly that
employers paid a skill premium to the like of teachers, astronomers, physicians. The Table
below, while somewhat dramatic and likely based on exaggerated reports by the chroniclers,
demonstrate the range of the skill premium in eighth-tenth centuries Iraq, where a community of
scholars flourished. Concentration of scholars explains the intellectual achievements, like the
translation of Greek sciences and codification of Islamic law. The Chart below demonstrates.
Average wage of skilled and unskilled labour in Iraq Eighth-Tenth Century (Dinars/Day)
Source: Ashtor, 1969; Pamuk and Shatzmiller, 2014. 58
The skill premium paid to the ‘intellectuals’ corresponded to the rise in educational
institutions, libraries, academies, madrasas, mosques, in itself a response to the demands of the
growing needs of courts and administration for literate personnel. 59 The migration pattern of the
57 Pamuk and Shatzmiller, 2014.
58 The skilled wages presented a challenge. Five entries produced data standard deviations of
14.52 and 222.61 for the 9th and 10th century respectively (none of the five entries came from the
8th century). Excluding the five entries produced standard deviations of 0.77 and 0.91 for the 9th
and 10th century respectively, closer to the standard deviation of 0.37 for the 8th century.
59 Shatzmiller, 2018.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
8th 9th 10th
Skilled Unskilled
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Arab tribes, namely their preference to settle in the cities, facilitated the standardization of the
Arabic language and its elevation to the status of the language of culture and that of state
institutions. Typically, as standards of living rose so did the expectations of parents and their will
to invest in their children’s education and to limit their number. More support for a long-term
low population level and the maintenance of the post-Malthusian gains comes from the second
structural change, a transition to individual property rights. advances
III. Property Rights and Women’s Empowerment
The transition to individual property rights may have begun in Mecca with the profits
from trade accumulating there and Meccan elites trying to exclude others from sharing in them,
as some have suggested. 60 Once in the Middle East, where land and real estate were held
individually, the transition was completed with the newly codified Islamic law showing well
defined individual property rights. 61 Although the process was not complete and land ownership
in Egypt remained in the hands of the government, private land existed in the other regions such
as Muslim Spain and North Africa. The benefits of property rights to the economy are well
established and include protection of investment, limiting “free riders”, minimizing transaction
costs, and the Islamic Middle East would be no exception. More significant however, was the
change individual property rights brought to women’s legal status and economic involvement. In
the space available here only slim mention of the rich empirical evidence on the changes
available, can be made. It includes evidence on Muslim women’ property rights,62 and on
women’s labour,63 which will allow us to provide a summary.
North argued that a group living in common property rights regime has no interest in
limiting births, unlike a group living in exclusive property rights regime. The group, which
achieved equilibrium between return on fixed resources, will strive to curtail birth through
“taboos, infanticide, and various other means,” 64 The theoretical and the comparative body of
literature on the issue has increased considerably since North, to focus on the role of women’s
60 Ibrahim, 1990.
61 On the formation of Islamic law see papers collected in Hallaq, ed., 2004.
62 Shatzmiller, 2007.
63 Full empirical analysis in Shatzmiller, 1994.
64 North, 1981, 65, 72- 89, quote on p. 85; On North’s interpretation of the economics of
property rights, Galiani and Sened, 2014.
Structural Change
16
economic empowerment as the motivation behind low fertility rate.65 The literature suggests
three major themes in the debate over women and economic development: females’ role as a
cultural factor, 66 their role in the demographic transition,67 and females’ role in economic
growth. 68 Women earning wages contributed to the two wage earners’ household, whose income
and living standards were higher.69 A household with two wage earners would be more likely to
have fewer children and therefore engage in voluntary birth control. The studies that focus on
post-Malthusian demography have paid increased attention to the changes in women’s income
and their economic empowerment, and female labour played a significant role in the transition. 70
The European model, the EMP, not quite a voluntary birth control, rather an involuntary one,
rationalised lower fertility rate because of women being absent from the hearth for long periods
of time due to their pasture activities. 71 Based on the literature Campbell suggested that it was
indeed the measure that ensured that not all economic gains were eliminated with population
recovery.72
Indeed, women’s property rights in the Islamic law provide a wider social and economic
context for the practice of birth control. Muslim society priorities, expressed through Islamic law
viewed reproductive behaviour as one of the individual’s property rights and women have
identical property rights to those of men. They inherit from all family members and bequeath,
have the right to exclusive ownership and enjoyment of property and income generated through
wage earning. Table 2 presents women’s property rights in the Islamic law in a diagram.
Table 2
Females’ Property Rights in Islamic Law
Right Acquisition Requirement Legal Status
65 Cinnirela, Kemp and Weisdorf, 2017.
66 Alesina, 2013.
67 Voighlander and Voth, 2013.
68Manifested in the debate over women’s wages in England’s Industrial Revolution, Allen, 2011;
rebuttal Humphries and Schneider, 2019.
69 De Moore and Van Zanden, 2010; Voigtländer and Voth, 2013; Livi-Bacci, 38-39
70 Voightländer and Voth, 2009 and 2012; Klemp and Framroze Møller, 2016; De Moore and
Van Zanden, 2010; Van Zanden, 2011. Dennison and Ogilvie, 2014; for dissenting opinions
Greenwood, 2018.
71 EMP and economic growth in De Moore and Van Zanden, 2010; Voigländer and Voth, 2013;
rebuttal Dennison and Ogilvie, 2014.
72 Campbell, 2013.
Structural Change
17
Receive mandatory gift
(bride price)
Marriage Marriage No forgiveness or
trading is allowed
Receive mandatory
maintenance
Marriage, divorce,
widowhood
Marriage May be traded for
husband’s rights
Inheritance
(mandatory)
Any time Any time No forgiveness or
trading in allowed
Receive gifts Any time Any time Forgiveness option
Earn wages Any time Occasionally husband’s
agreement is required
No forgiveness or
trading-in
Invest (sales, loans) Majority Majority and release
from interdiction
No forgiveness or
trading- in
Gifting Majority Majority and release
from interdiction
At will
Agree to
consummation of
marriage
Marriage Delivery of bride price Taking possession of
the bride price
Agree to birth control Marriage Compensation required Only to free women
Receive payment for
wet nursing
Marriage Husband’s agreement At will
Source: Shatzmiller, 2007.
The significance of the above-mentioned rights means not only that females had the right
to acquire, own and dispose freely of property transferred and acquired through various means,
gift, inheritance, wages, but also, that there was no conjugal property at marriage and no
interference from fathers or husbands. There is plenty of empirical evidence in the literacy
sources to fill in the legal framework with content. 73 A spectrum of women’s trades and
economic activities includes occupations in the manufacturing sectors, especially in textile
production with female monopoly on spinning, and in the service sector, in addition to tasks
performed in the rural sector, harvesting and dairy production. Together with empirical evidence
on women’s labour and female’s attachment to labour markets in the Middle East law and labour
evidence suggest that Muslim household was a two earners household. The challenge remains
providing quantitative evidence to support the claim that women’s property rights in the law
corresponded to ‘real’ economic gains, and secondly that it had a positive impact on economic
development.
To provide reliable quantitative evidence on partial women’s property, we turned to
marriage contracts where the value of payment and property transferred to brides are registered.
73 For details, Shatzmiller, 1988, 1994, pp. 347–353, 1995, 1997, 2007, 2012, 2013.
Structural Change
18
A collection of 650 marriage contracts with data on bride price and family gift dating from
eleventh-thirteenth century Egypt was analysed with the following results. 74
Table 3
Combined Bride Price and Family Gift Egypt 11th-13th Centuries in Gold Dinars
Source: http://www.medievalislamiceconomy.uwo.ca/equity_equality/appendices/index.html
In the absence of data on women’s wages and only sporadic quantitative data on
women’s inheritance, a complete picture of medieval women’s worth eludes us. Although
partial, it is possible to make an argument in favour of a trend based on the results. Property and
wages owned by women most likely played a role in household decision to limit the number of
children produced. If we are to follow the argument presented here the conclusion needs to be
that the transition to individual property rights in the medieval Middle East responded to changes
in economic structures. Women’s and household’s incomes increased and together played a role
in lowering fertility rate, which in turn permitted the economic gains achieved earlier to remain.
Recent publications by the IMF on the ‘Year of Women’s events’, show that women’s
progress to equality with men, in the work force, income and empowerment is still slow,75 and
that women in Muslim countries are stuck at the bottom of the international scale.76 Although
women’s status is only a part of the puzzle of what ails the contemporary Middle East, this paper
argued that Islamic law is not the cause. It concludes that methodologically and empirically, the
evidence from the Middle East displays vibrant growth promoting Islamic economic institutions.
74 Datasets and Appendices on
http://www.medievalislamiceconomy.uwo.ca/equity_equality/index.html
75 https://wiw-report.s3.amazonaws.com/Women_in_the_Workplace_2019.pdf
76 ADHR 2005.
Bride
Price
Observations Mean Median Interquartile
Range
Mode Standard
Deviation
Variation Min Max
Early 116 15 8 16 5 25 625 1 200
Delayed 132 31 20 30 20 37 1393 1 300
Combined 114 50 30 50 25 75 5575 4 502
Family
Gift
65 143 61 152 50 189 35500 2 795
Structural Change
19
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