AHC: Islamic Industrial Revolution

[Falecius]

I believe there's both coal and iron in the Balkans, plus its a fertile area, so maybe you could do it there.

I've often wondered whether you could get an industrial revolution starting in the Middle East based on oil.

The problem is to have to have the Ottoman ideology suitable for such a thing. Not impossible, though rather hard. I'd actually wrote the outlines of an Ottoman-Mughal scientific revolution some years ago. It's in Italian, though, and not very plausible, but it can be done someway.
I have to say, Iberia strikes me as a better candidate, but the Middle East and Balkans together have a fair chance if things are arranged with a suitable POD.

 

[Nugax]

Here's coal, can't find iron:

http://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/7200/7264/7264.gif

Here's iron:

http://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Sa...europa_iron_detail_g_en.jpg?__blob=normal&v=2

These maps merely show extent, utterly failing on accessibility, quantity, and quality of the ore beds in question. On each of those three factors the Iberian resources are an order of magnitude or more worse than those in northern europe.

In addition the position Iron isn't that relevant, since it takes a much greater mass of your energy stock than your iron ore, you always will be moving the iron to the coal/whatever rather than the other way round.

 

[Faeelin]

Nugax: Is there anywhere other than NOrthern Europe you could see an industrial revolution?

 

[Hobelhouse]

One problem is going to be Islamic inheritance laws. In the Muslim world property tended to be divided up between all heirs instead of primarily passing to one heir in primogeniturist Europe. This will make it difficult for individuals to accumulate sufficient capital to start an enterprise.

 

[Nugax]

Nugax: Is there anywhere other than NOrthern Europe you could see an industrial revolution?

Oh yeah certainly, a particularly well set up south eastern Chinese state or a Bengali state which pacifies and develops sufficient infrastructure in Gondwana could do it, or north eastern north america if it has a pre-industrial urban culture unconnected from Europe there. The former two will need some other technological advances to get at their resources that didn't happen in their OTL history but there is no reason those couldn't occur in their preindustrial society. I suppose you could also have the agricultural revolution that enabled settlement of the steppes happen first (rather than a century after) and then have an industrial revolution based round the black sea littoral's resources (I think this would also require said region to either be united or lots of little states rather than the constant battleground of two great powers).

Not to mention northern europe could be run by any number of different cultures and still have good results. I sincerely fucking hope you're not mistaking me saying 'the Isle of Great Britain is amazing well suited for quick industrialisation, and that other cultures in different locales didn't manage it is not a negative reflection on their efforts or ability' with 'The British and blue-eyed northern europeans are amazing at industrialisation in ways darkies just can't comprehend'.

That's if your sticking to the coal-based model of the OTL industrial revolution of course, it could go other ways (though obviously these alternative paths like a metallurgy-hydropower-electric model have no OTL examples to back them up).

 

[Socrates]

Not to mention northern europe could be run by any number of different cultures and still have good results. I sincerely fucking hope you're not mistaking me saying 'the Isle of Great Britain is amazing well suited for quick industrialisation, and that other cultures in different locales didn't manage it is not a negative reflection on their efforts or ability' with 'The British and blue-eyed northern europeans are amazing at industrialisation in ways darkies just can't comprehend'.

Not only was Britain extremely well suited for industrialisation, I would also argue it was extremely well suited for creating a society and culture that is well suited to industrialisation.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

<snip>

Well, since those aren't part of the OTL Medeival Dar-al Islam, I'd say that question and answer would really be suited to another thread...

 

[Nugax]

Not only was Britain extremely well suited for industrialisation, I would also argue it was extremely well suited for creating a society and culture that is well suited to industrialisation.

Meh, lots of societies have had that sort of commercial and organisational dynamism in their heydays; the italian republics, the low countries, various chinese and indian urban cultures, even urban islamic spain (or rather the lower Guadalquivir cities in particular). Britain had the good luck to hit that point of dynamism at the same time as when technology to exploit its incredibly easily accessible and abundant energy base had become available. British culture wasn't particularly special.

@JFP; I ain't no necromancer. Exploration of types and circumstances of industrial development is pertinent to a thread on its development in islamic iberia, in particularly to demonstrate why the resource base and technological competencies of islamic iberia wasn't up to the task (though obviously in an ATL were they survive longer the former might be overcome).

 

[Socrates]

I think that the particularly high coast to land area that Britain had, while being close to a trading network, meant it was very likely the merchant class would get the upper hand in England though. That means a political system that looks after capitalist interests.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Bah, it could have happened in France or germanic lands instead of Britain, with some key changes.

And Song or Ming Dynasties.

Specially if mercantilism and capitalism aren't needed for that...

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

@JFP; I ain't no necromancer. Exploration of types and circumstances of industrial development is pertinent to a thread on its development in islamic iberia, in particularly to demonstrate why the resource base and technological competencies of islamic iberia wasn't up to the task (though obviously in an ATL were they survive longer the former might be overcome).

Fair enough; I'd just like this to stay on-topic as possible.

 

[Falecius]

One problem is going to be Islamic inheritance laws. In the Muslim world property tended to be divided up between all heirs instead of primarily passing to one heir in primogeniturist Europe. This will make it difficult for individuals to accumulate sufficient capital to start an enterprise.

Primogeniture is no longer active in European laws since quite a while I think (surely it is not in Italy) and capitalism does not appear to have ever suffered from this change.
Some stockholding system can be envisioned in ATL to allow accumulation, though I have to admit that this requires handwavium.

 

[Falecius]

Nugax: that the coal and iron resources are less suited than those in Britain for the Industrial development is a useful note, but not that relevant.
It is only required that those resources are accessible with a pre-Industrial tech comparable to the one of pre-Industrial Britain. Which I actually don't know.
This may be a major problem, together with the transport issue.
That is why I'm considering Iberia/Maghrib as a strong candidate for the Agricultural/Scientific revolution, while I am uncertain for the actual Industrial revolution. With a POD around 1000 AD, the cultural premises of an industrialization (including technology) could be in place in, well, more or less half a millennium, if America is discovered.
But the real leap to industry is not warranted (if it were, OTL's Spain would have industrialized before Britain in modern age after all. It didn't happen). All the relevant factors may be there, just not in the right mix.
Now, if the mines are accessible with a pre-Industrial tech, it is possible.
If not, well, the scenario I sketched above does not fit the bill for OP anymore, unless a completely different path to Industrialization is imagined (that has no OTL equivalent).
In order to overcome some of the major obstacles, I've been toying with the idea of the actual Industrial leap having place in a Islamized North America rather than in Iberia. It would help to solve some issues, most notably transportation. But there are other problems with population I guess.

 

[RazeByFire]

Additional problems with Capital. Muslims are not allowed to earn money by interest.

There could be some workarounds with stocks and maybe some rules lawyers could work something out, but this is one reason why Jews were making bank in the Middle Ages. Christians were from usury by the Catholic Church as well, IIRC.

Also the reason for pogroms when the King decides he doesn't want to pay.

And the source for the racist meme 'Ebil Jewish Bankers!@#$!'

 

[eliphas8]

Additional problems with Capital. Muslims are not allowed to earn money by interest.

There could be some workarounds with stocks and maybe some rules lawyers could work something out, but this is one reason why Jews were making bank in the Middle Ages. Christians were from usury by the Catholic Church as well, IIRC.

Also the reason for pogroms when the King decides he doesn't want to pay.

And the source for the racist meme 'Ebil Jewish Bankers!@#$!'

Well yeah but almost all Muslim countries had massive Jewish community's who ran the banking who could easily become the industrial class.

 

[MAlexMatt]

Meh, lots of societies have had that sort of commercial and organisational dynamism in their heydays; the italian republics, the low countries, various chinese and indian urban cultures, even urban islamic spain (or rather the lower Guadalquivir cities in particular).

Notice the one thing all of these have in common that Britain doesn't?

They're all continental. They're all continental and they all border large land powers with a more traditionalist bent that is going to both want the wealth they have and want to squash the relatively liberal culture on their borders for political reasons.

Britain was unique in being an island large enough to support a dynamic civilization, while being small enough to unite (or nearly unite) under one sovereignty to create the legal order necessary to commercial success and secure it from agrarianist conquest, while also being close enough a continental civilization to tie into a trade network wherein it is just one part, rather than the whole.

The fact that no where else is as well suited to the invention of industrial civilization as Britain is borne out in the fact that no where else quite got there IOTL. China managed to get close, but then fell to foreign invasion and centralized mismanagement thereafter. Medieval Italy got close, but fell to internal conflict and external invasion. The Netherlands got close, but France was an eternal threat that forced the Dutch to spend a lot of their capital on defense instead of industrial development.

It keeps going like that. Industrialization is a little bit like abiogenesis: You can look elsewhere in the solar system and see a lot of the pieces for originating life; the kind of advanced chemistry, environmental factors, and other parameters that should lead to life;, but it life only happened here on Earth. Once industrialization as a social paradigm was invented, it could spread quickly, but before that it took thousands of years and the exact right circumstances for it to happen.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Notice the one thing all of these have in common that Britain doesn't?

They're all continental. They're all continental and they all border large land powers with a more traditionalist bent that is going to both want the wealth they have and want to squash the relatively liberal culture on their borders for political reasons.

Britain was unique in being an island large enough to support a dynamic civilization, while being small enough to unite (or nearly unite) under one sovereignty to create the legal order necessary to commercial success and secure it from agrarianist conquest, while also being close enough a continental civilization to tie into a trade network wherein it is just one part, rather than the whole.

The fact that no where else is as well suited to the invention of industrial civilization as Britain is borne out in the fact that no where else quite got there IOTL. China managed to get close, but then fell to foreign invasion and centralized mismanagement thereafter. Medieval Italy got close, but fell to internal conflict and external invasion. The Netherlands got close, but France was an eternal threat that forced the Dutch to spend a lot of their capital on defense instead of industrial development.

It keeps going like that. Industrialization is a little bit like abiogenesis: You can look elsewhere in the solar system and see a lot of the pieces for originating life; the kind of advanced chemistry, environmental factors, and other parameters that should lead to life;, but it life only happened here on Earth. Once industrialization as a social paradigm was invented, it could spread quickly, but before that it took thousands of years and the exact right circumstances for it to happen.

Beware, it seems to be a politicaly-ideologicaly touched subject, with nationalism and right-left political views seeping in.

 

[MAlexMatt]

Beware, it seems to be a politicaly-ideologicaly touched subject, with nationalism and right-left political views seeping in.

Humanity in general is a politically/ideologically touched subject.

 

[Elfwine]

Additional problems with Capital. Muslims are not allowed to earn money by interest.

There could be some workarounds with stocks and maybe some rules lawyers could work something out, but this is one reason why Jews were making bank in the Middle Ages. Christians were from usury by the Catholic Church as well, IIRC.

Also the reason for pogroms when the King decides he doesn't want to pay.

And the source for the racist meme 'Ebil Jewish Bankers!@#$!'

And neither are Christians, but that didn't stop the European Industrial Revolution.

So I think this is irrelevant, even ignoring the Jews.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Beware, it seems to be a politicaly-ideologicaly touched subject, with nationalism and right-left political views seeping in.

TBF, I wouldn't say "Britain got there first largely because it was an island" is particularly nationalistic