216 DESTINY DISRUPTED
To sell a lot you have to make a lot. To buy nothing, you have to be
self-sufficient. But how could a nation sell and sell and never buy? Where
would the raw materials come from? This is where mercantilism, which
was intertwined with nationalism, which was intertwined with the Protes-
tant Reformation, which was intertwined with the ethos of individualism,
which was intertwined with Renaissance humanism-intersected with Eu-
ropean sea prowess and the urge to explore the world-which came right
out of the Crusades.
All these synergistic, cross-fertilizing developments were beginning to
peak in Europe just around 1600. At that moment, Europeans were mas-
ter mariners. They were rapidly getting organized as compact nation-
states. They were rethinking the world in scientific terms. They had the
gold of the Americas burning holes in their pockets. And they were eco-
nomically energized by protocapitalist entrepreneurs armed with a new
ethos of individualism.
Incredibly enough, all of this development went virtually unnoticed by
the Muslim world where, at that very moment, Moghul civilization was
peaking in India, Safavid culture was peaking in Persia, and the Ottoman
empire was only just past its peak period of efflorescence in Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Hijaz, Egypt, and North Africa.
And then the two worlds began to intermingle.