History Gone Wrong?
Arab male pride is very strong, and also very fragile.
—JAN GOODMAN, Price of HonorN
o one can understand the economic performance of Muslim na
tions without attending to the experience of Islam as faith and
culture. Islam, which means submission (to God), is one of the great
world religions. Born in the desert like its two monotheistic predeces
sors, Judaism and Christianity, Islam proved uncommonly inspiring,
carrying with it a small group of nomadic fighters to wide and rapid do
minion. Within a century of the Prophet Muhammad's flight (Hegira)
from Mecca to Medina (622, year 1 of the Muslim era), the mostiy
Arab warriors of the new faith crumpled the nations and empires of the
Middle East and swept westward past Gibraltar to the Atiantic and
through Spain into central France. Then, after a digestive respite, new
armies pushed eastward into India and beyond. By the time Europeans
entered the Indian Ocean by sea (1498), Islam had planted itself in
parts of China and the Philippines, down the east coast of Africa, in
southeastern Europe into the Danube basin, and along the trade routes
of central Asia. Only in Spain and Portugal had a reconquista regained
lands once Muslim and reversed a seemingly predestined course of
conquest.
This explosion of passion and commitment was the most important
feature of Eurasian history in what we may call the middle centuries—