Can 19th century Middle Eastern States Modernize without acquiring massive debts

Basically during the 19th century most of the countries of Middle East (Which for the sake of discussion includes North Africa) tried to modernize their countries by reforming their militaries along Western lines and making investments in infrastructure in order to avoid European expansion. However this was an incredibly expense process and in order to finance it Middle Eastern governments took out massive loans. When they were inevitably unable to repay their loans, European powers used it as justification to force concessions on their countries that turned them into de facto colonies. The most notable example of this was in Egypt when Khedive Ismail bankrupted his country building the Suez Canal and waging a pointless war against Ethiopia which enable the British and French to depose him and eventually turn Egypt into a British protectorate.

My question is how can Middle Eastern countries modernize without bankrupting themselves and opening the door for European imperialism?
 
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You mean the Ottoman and Persian empires, don't you? There weren't really independent Middle Eastern states yet.

There were a few. I gave the example of Egypt which was de facto independent, as were Tunisia, Morocco, Afghanistan, and Oman before being turned into British and French colonies. While some of these countries may have officially been Ottoman vassals, they were independent in all but name.
 
Almost none of those are "Middle Eastern" as I understand it.

Anything west of Sinai is North Africa (although, geopolitically a case can be made for Egypt) and anything east of the Tigris is Persia or Central Asia.

While, for example, calling Afghanistan or Tunisia Middle Eastern is tempting from a modern perspective, it's also more than a little silly historically and a grossly generalized oversimplification.

Now if anything Syria and to the south, Arabia and to the north, Palestine and to the east, or Iraq and to the west broke free of the Ottomans...

Yes, they will accrue debt to modernize and industrialize, but as soon as nations need oil, they'll be the ones doing the loaning - especially if their independence meant solid relations with the west in the first place.
 
Okay I edited the OP to include North Africa and we can ignore Afghanistan if we wish since it is fairly distinct from the other nations that I listed.

Now then...

Yes, they will accrue debt to modernize and industrialize, but as soon as nations need oil, they'll be the ones doing the loaning - especially if their independence meant solid relations with the west in the first place.

The problem is that virtually all of the oil resources in the region weren't discovered until the 20th century well after most of these countries had become de facto colonies. Not to mention most of the Middle Eastern-North African nations don't have access to oil at all. To make matters worse the only groups that have the technology to locate and extract oil were Western companies that initially ended having total control of Middle Eastern oil, something they worked hard to defend, as seen in Iran in the 50's.
 
Okay I edited the OP to include North Africa and we can ignore Afghanistan if we wish since it is fairly distinct from the other nations that I listed.

Now then...



The problem is that virtually all of the oil resources in the region weren't discovered until the 20th century well after most of these countries had become de facto colonies. Not to mention most of the Middle Eastern-North African nations don't have access to oil at all. To make matters worse the only groups that have the technology to locate and extract oil were Western companies that initially ended having total control of Middle Eastern oil, something they worked hard to defend, as seen in Iran in the 50's.

See, but that's because they were Ottoman territories 'colonized' after the OE's fall. If these nations are independent of the OE in the 1800s and either individual states, a confederation, or a Panarabian Empire, then they will have to borrow money (not to mention arms and military advisors), industrialize, modernize, and then oil is discovered and desired right in time to pay those debts off and then some.

In this scenario Arabiana is really quite fortunate to have what the world needs, exactly when the world needs it, at precisely the last minute that the world is patient with them. Claims of Allah's guidance will be rather believable and celebrated. God has made his people prosperous at the time when prosperity has become a dire necessity. If this poor little upstart nation the international community is propping up is indeed one nation, then expect it to enter the mid 20th century as a great power...

As to North Africa, I can't say... Sorry.
 
Before its conquest by the French, Algiers was a lender, and in part the reason for the conflict was that the French under Napoleon had run up massive debts to the Dey.

What I can't recall is, other than piracy, what Algiers' economy was based on that allowed it to lend so much money

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Islamic customs are more stringent than Christian ones when it comes to usury. This makes it extremely difficult for Western-style financial institutions to take root in the Islamic world (we see this even today). Without such institutions, you really can't have modernization.
 
Islamic customs are more stringent than Christian ones when it comes to usury. This makes it extremely difficult for Western-style financial institutions to take root in the Islamic world (we see this even today). Without such institutions, you really can't have modernization.

Roman Catholic church banned usury until around 1900.
The basic principle of Islamic banking is based on risk-sharing which is a component of trade rather than risk-transfer which is seen in conventional banking. Islamic banking introduces concepts such as profit sharing (Mudharabah), safekeeping (Wadiah), joint venture (Musharakah), cost plus (Murabahah), and leasing (Ijar).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking#Principles
 
See, but that's because they were Ottoman territories 'colonized' after the OE's fall. If these nations are independent of the OE in the 1800s and either individual states, a confederation, or a Panarabian Empire, then they will have to borrow money (not to mention arms and military advisors), industrialize, modernize, and then oil is discovered and desired right in time to pay those debts off and then some.

In this scenario Arabiana is really quite fortunate to have what the world needs, exactly when the world needs it, at precisely the last minute that the world is patient with them. Claims of Allah's guidance will be rather believable and celebrated. God has made his people prosperous at the time when prosperity has become a dire necessity. If this poor little upstart nation the international community is propping up is indeed one nation, then expect it to enter the mid 20th century as a great power...

As to North Africa, I can't say... Sorry.

I strongly doubt that if the Ottoman Empire's Arab territories were seek independence that the European powers would simply not take full advantage. I think the most likely outcome would be Arab vilayets declare independence and then the various European colonial powers, France, Britain, German, etc., swoop in declare themselves "protectors" of these new nations. As for the value of oil, the people who can acquire it early on are Western companies who were not very inclined to share the wealth. In OTL it took decades of political negotiation for the Oil producing countries of the region to gain full control of the profits from selling oil. I gave the example of Iran, where the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company refused to a new concession that would have seen Iran gain a greater share of the company's profits triggering a series of events that led to the overthrow of the Mossadegh government.
 
Yeah, but nobody cared.

To be honest, most Muslims didn't care about the usury ban (or the wine ban or many other bans) either. In fact it's a little easier to ignore these bans when there's no Caliph around (no one listened to the Ottoman claims at the time) to yell at you.
 
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