Why Are Muslims So Poor? (How Did Islam Go From Running the World to Poverty?)

In this video, Al and Simone tackle a difficult historical question: Why did once-wealthy Muslim empires decline into poverty? They discuss misconceptions about the economic downfall and explore the historical context, including the wealth and advancements of Muslim empires around the year 1000. They also cover various socio-economic factors such as inheritance laws, usury laws, colonialism, and the alliance between religious and political authorities. The episode delves into specific challenges facing Muslim-majority countries compared to the historical context and also includes a discussion on modern Muslim income levels in the U.S. and the impact of governance and religious practices. The video concludes with thoughts about potential reforms and the importance of adapting religious interpretations to today's technological and socio-economic realities.

00:00 Introduction and Provocative Question
00:31 Historical Wealth of Muslim Empires
02:08 Muslim Economic Decline
04:35 Muslim Poverty in the Modern World
07:03 Immigration and Economic Impact
14:44 Islamic Inheritance Laws and Economic Consequences
19:26 Usury Laws and Financial Instruments
29:53 Janissaries and Ottoman Empire
37:12 Bureaucratic Expansion and Its Consequences
38:10 Shift to Feudalism and Its Impact
39:27 Prohibition of the Printing Press
40:19 Calligraphy vs. Printing Press
43:56 Modern Comparisons and AI Fears
46:36 Intellectual Property and Innovation
48:46 Cultural Isolationism and Its Effects
53:47 Gender Roles and Education in Islamic Societies
55:55 Governance and Religious Influence
01:06:34 Concluding Thoughts on Governance and Religion

[SimoneandMalcolm]

Sorry about the weird audio on the little cartoon about the praetorian guard - You tube did that for copy right - if you want to see the original just google it.

[orboakin]

As a Nigerian, here's my simple answer: Bad geography, poor social and economic systems, poor political systems, failing legal and social institutions, dutch disease, tribalism and others. During the golden age of Islam, under Harun al-Rashid, the civilization was experiencing great economic, social and scientific development and Islam was moderatingbabd becoming more Secular until Orthodox pushback from Imams and others caused these changes to stop. Then, the Christian West embraced modernity and reform and advanced in all fields. The fact that Christianity abolished institutions like slavery, broke clan structures by removing cousin marriage, and stopped the ban on usary which led to stuff like capitalism and meritocracy, while islam refused to do all of this. Also, the colonialism excuse is just lazy and mainly used by tribalist Arabs as an excuse. Same way Pan-Africans use it as an excuse for Africa's failings.

[rb]

To me this video really illustrates the problem of Mohammed being not only a religious leader, but also the ruler of a state. Because Mohammed essentially founded a nation, he also had to lay down endless rules on government and every aspect of life, and it's pretty unsurprising that 7th century Arabian perceptions on how to efficiently run a state couldn't really stand the test of time. The Ottomans are a perfect example of it. They were extremely powerful at first, but in the 20th century they felt like this out of place elephant transplanted through time just waiting for a nudge to have their empire implode.

[classicallpvault]

Edward Dutton, in his book 'Islam: An Evolutionary Analysis', claims that islam, if followed strictly, suppresses phenotypical intelligence. Wether it's getting up at inconvenient times to pray, causing chronic sleep deprivation, to abstaining from food and water during daytime while fasting, to defining intellect first and foremost in terms of rhote memorisation of holy scripture, and corporal punishment of children, all to some degree suppress the potential for intellectual development within the bandwidth that one's genetics allow. Another factor might be that islam allows less leniency regarding its own doctrines, meaning they close themselves off from newly developed knowledge if it runs contrary to islam, whereas Christianity and Judaism allow for much more mental gymnastics to allow both a pursuit of traditional religion as well as embracing new technological and social insights.

[diamondback]

I wonder if the inbreeding and the incest rated have something to do with it?

[ThrashLawPatentsAndTMs]

You should do a follow up of this episode by interviewing Robert Spencer (author of The Truth about Islam).
He has some interesting data and historical re-framing.

For example, he dismisses a "myth of an Islamic Golden Age" and provides (by memory):
-- algebra was invented by the Mesopotamians, and used by the Arabs to build war machines;
-- Islamic wealth was typically a byproduct of conquest, and always highly concentrated;
-- some Western books were preserved by some Muslims during conquest, but by-and-large the reason Western thought was lost in the dark ages was because Muslim raiders would conquer a monastery or city and burn the libraries, so most survived by being snuck-out by escaping monks; and
-- Islam was (and pretty much is) always at war seeking conquest ("Muhammad was a warlord"), with brief periods of rest to re-populate and begin conquest anew.
Just to name a few points.

When I travel one observation -- particularly in Anatolia -- is that Islamic castles and Greek walled cities arises in tandem, and dates of the Greek cities falling one-by-one decade-by-decade are provided in the monuments and historical markers. This continues through the Balkans and to Vienna.

Dittos Iberia, especially in Portugal and Spain's Castile.

[azimsiddiqui]

you probably left out the most important parts being:
1. cousin marriage (to fight against the inheritance laws) leads to really bad genetics(in certain towns in Britain over 70% of Pakistani children are from cousin marriages)
2. slavery is really bad for advancing economies and leads to much more stagnant heirarhcal clan based socites (even the us south is poor)
3. corruption and family connection over meritoracry(not limited to Islam but common in the 3rd and 2nd world)
4. Most importantly: the quran cannot change at all. so all Muslim beliefs are the exact same as 1400 years ago. this is why there is a lot of cope about strict version of islam but its not strict version is the normal version its just that normal was liennt 1400 years ago but now is really strict.

[adamdonovan]

Malcolm, you should read the Q…it’s not what you think. Most of you think is really problematic wasn’t added onto the Q, it’s in there. He was a warlord who declared he was a sacred figure to legitimize his conquest and make promises of otherworldly rewards so that he could expand his army.

[MrMinnesota]

You're actually describing Muslim colonialism, the science was advanced by their slaves

[CássioAraújo-zu]

Hummm... And what about the Mongol Empire? Killed 80-90% of Iran, one of the pinnacals of Islamic Civilization, and Baggdad; only Egypt and Spain were spared... destroyed cities and infraestruture, irrigation, you know. Maybe the trauma created a conservative and reactionary loop, seen in China and Russia? Also, you forgot to mention sufism and legalism - the first, much more lenient version of Islam, and was important to the expansion of the religion in majority non-islamic regions. But with time, Islam became more legalist and less and less 'mystic'... It's like in eu4 were 'mysticism' helps you with conversion, but when your population is converted you turn to legalism to receive benefits in tax and manpower with a larger burocracy (the benefits doesn't matter, but you got the message, a historical pendulum).
Greetings from Brazil.

[KerriKnox]

Having lived in a muslim country, its because:
1. Savings isnt valued
2. Generosity is
3. They have huge families, so if you get money, you:

- Get another wife and have more children
- Finance all your poor relatives
- Help everyone who asks for help
- Build infrastructure for a bigger family and/or a business
So, everyone lives paycheck to paycheck whether they are poor or rich.

[JaxBespoked]

It really comes down to the Mu'tazalites versus Ash'arites theological struggle in the 9th through the 11th centuries. As long as the Sunni sect of Islam is ruled by Ash'arite thinking, the mainstream of Islam will believe that (1) all of nature is recreated from moment to moment by the will of Allah; (2) reason is not only a deficient method of explaining the universe, but is a sin, a contravention of Allah's will; (3) there is no good or evil, except what the Qur'an says, and what the Qur'an says can be superseded at any moment by the exercise of the will of Allah; (4) there is no guarantee that things will unfold as they have unfolded in the past - if things do that, it is only because that is the habit of Allah and an acorn could just as easily turn out to be a Chevrolet as an oak tree, depending on how Allah wills it.

[The_left_hand_pillar]

As i understand it Islamic inheritance laws require division even beyond one's immediate family, and that this is in large part why first cousin marriage is so common in Muslim countries. If this kind of inheritance model causes the dilution of wealth preventing the growth of large companies, then the practice of primogeniture in Europe would possibly have been a major factor in the business success of the region.

[AllanTidgwell]

Muslims didn't invent Algebra or "Arabic" numerals. The numerals we use today were first developed in India, specifically as a mixture of Brahmi and Hindu numerical systems, while both Babylon and Egypt developed algebra all the way back in at least 1600 BC. Heck, Pythagoras described Pythagorean triples (which predate him) about 1100 years before Muhammed was born

The reason we associate these things with "Muslims" is because they propagated to the west from the east through the middle east. It's basically Tesla inventing the radio and then Marconi using Tesla's patents to show it works and everyone claiming Marconi invented the radio

[Mendozam]

Christians got around religious usury/interests laws with a system called the contractum trinius. First the lender invests (societas), then the borrower sells a portion of profits to the lender for the investment money (emptio-vendito), and finally the borrower pays the lender insurance in case there isn't any profit made. (assecuratio)

Very Warhammer 40k. Basically the same concept used to get around the God Emperors ban on artificial intelligence, but instead of interest exchanged for insurance, it's CPUs exchanged for still born babies brains.

[Cotictimmy]

Observation: When an authoritarian religious regime commands its citizens not to ask questions, not think dissident thoughts, not do representational art, & not speak your thoughts freely (on pain of death, severe punishment, or social ostracism), most people are going to obey. ps. Still loving the Ultimate bespectacled Nerd couple. 💕

[elKarlo]

Year 1700. You said 17, 000 around 2:33. I don’t care, but it’s to stop nitpickers from derailing and interesting question

[drakethesnek]

Good luck to all the madmen who listen to malcolm at double speed 😅

[michaels]

The Arabs are of course well known for their high frequency of cousin marriages, but there are other Muslim ethnicities, such as the Turks and Indonesians, where cousin marriages are not the norm and do not seem to be more common than in most other non - Christian societies.

[annatardlordofderps]

It reminds me of Caeser's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas.

You talk to a Gen 1 Super Mutant (the intelligent type) who comments that Caesers Legion is developed only for military conquest. The men who display themselves with distinction can acrue massive wealth and multiple wives, but eventually, you run out of people that can be conquered, and once that occurs, it will collapse from within.

Effectively, polygamy, geology, and reliance on slavery prevented any significant industrialization, and there were no physical technologies that could allow the Caliphates to keep up with Western production.

The Muslims couldn't push into Europe anymore, and any attempt to spread Eastward would be capitalized on by the Christians. This put a halt on their ability to conquer other people's wealth and enslave them, putting all technological and economic development to a halt.