Structural change and economic development in the Islamic Middle East 700–1500: Population levels and property rights

Abstract

There are currently various scholarly and disciplinary debates going on as to what ailed, and is ailing, Muslim-majority states. Political economists focus on what currently blocks economic development in the Middle East, for instance lack of support for 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. 1 Economic historians, on the other hand, have turned their gaze to the past, in particular to the role of mediaeval institutions, Islamic law and religious 1 Defined as "deficits," see successive issues of the Arab Human Development Report. (AHDR).