Islamic Civilization

The Italian Role

  Abu Lughod points out how during the so-called Dark Ages  of Europe, the Italian ports never lost their continuity nor their connections with the East.[1] The Italian port towns of Genoa  and Venice , in particular, maintained an intense trade with Anatolia as well as with the Fertile Crescent, Egypt , and North Africa, and because of that were able to learn from their eastern counterparts many of the institutional arrangements that facilitated long distance and cross-societal trade.[2]Only few Western historians, she notes, have paid adequate attention to these Eastern precedents, whilst the like of Max Weber have often credited the Italians with unique business creativity, which they hardly deserved, although they did make crafty use of the lessons they learned. But they were subsidiary to the Middle East .[3]

The reason why the Italians  pioneered with regard to trade is precisely because they, not other parts of Western Christendom, had the most trading links with the Islamic world whether in North Africa, or in the East. In the Maghrib, for instance, in the 12^th century, the Pisans, Florentines, Genoese, Venetians, and Sicilians had trade establishments in the main city ports from Tripoli in the east to Ceuta in the West.[4]With the East, Amalfi, principally, traded with Syria , [5]whilst Pisa , Genoa  and Venice  had monopoly over Eastern trade in the wake of the crusades.[6]Thus, it is little surprise, that it is the very cities, which traded with the Islamic world that pioneered and dominated every aspect of Western Christian trade, in form and in substance. And how, when, where, and in what form they picked and transmitted some fundamental aspects of modern trade from Islam  is now considered.

Many expressions, which are today part of the Western vocabulary and international trade have an Arabic origin, expressions such as arsenal, Magasin, traffic, tariff, douane (customs), aval, etc. The impact is not just, as has been the practice on the part of most historians/specialists of Islamic culture, to mention them whilst passing, or see them in their linguistic form only, but much more than this. The true impact is their establishing fundamentals upon which the whole modern system of trade works. No need here to dwell too long on a word such as traffic, for instance, from tafriiq, meaning `distribution,’ which is the basis for exchanges. Today, the focus of the World Trade  Organisation is on the concept of free movement of goods as the basis of prosperity. ‘Magazine’, for example, particularly in the sense of a storehouse for goods, comes from the Arabic; the Arabic plural makhazin being adopted as a singular by the Italian traders of the late Middle Ages (e.g. Genoa  or Venice ), either direct from an Arabic-speaking country like Egypt  or, more likely, from Turkey or Persia, where Arabic plurals were often used as singulars.[7] Then, from Italian magazzino, it passed into Old French as magazin (modern magasin = ‘shop’) and thence to English.[8] Nowadays, of course, it is most familiar in the sense of a ‘storehouse’ and as a miscellaneous weekly or monthly periodical.[9] Magasin carries the notion of storage; the magasins for centuries acting as the bases for all European/Jewish  trade dealings in and out of the Islamic land. Around and from the magasins evolved maritime activity, money exchange, road transport, etc. Reference to De Mas Latrie shows that all Western Mediterranean republics, Italians , without exception, owned permanent establishments in Muslim coastal towns, entertaining councils and envoys to safeguard their interests and manage their businesses, and expand their trade.[10]

Another borrowing of fundamental importance is the English word ‘arsenal’ derived from Italian arsenale, itself derived from the Arabic expression dar as-sina’ah, ‘craft-house, workshop’.[11] Wickens appropriately makes the following point:

`The non-expert might well be sceptical here: were there no workshops in the West, and could the word ‘arsenal’ really come from a word looking so different? The answers are fairly straightforward. In the first place, while Western craftsmen in the early Middle Ages were certainly capable of making weapons and building vessels, they lacked (and often suffered for lacking) really large-scale centralized organization of these activities until it was introduced from the Middle East . The linguistic jump is not so great as it seems: when terms are borrowed in this way, one of the commonest casualties is the initial, imperfectly heard consonant: hence the disappearing ‘d’. As to the inserted ‘l’ in ‘arsenal’, this was probably an attempt to cope with the heavy Arabic guttural while still giving the word a satisfactory Italian sound to finish with.’[12]

The concept of wealth creation relies on a fundamental element: risk. Without risk in search of profit, no venture is undertaken; and no investment is made. The concept of risk comes from the Arabic `Rizk’ (bounty), which is even more enticing than profit. In no culture, would economic venture and bounty seem so closely associated than in the Islamic. In tracing the history of commerce, and wealth creation, Peter Jay seized on this particular element to highlight the decisive role of the Islamic civilisation  in expanding international trade by associating the concepts of risk taking and bounty, and the role of the Italians  in seizing on the concept.[13] The notion of `rizq’ has a powerful  psychological impact, stimulating the search for wealth through association of bounty with economic venture. Islam, thus, replaced the fulfilment of localized needs with profit through large commercial exchanges; and the search for higher profit demanding increased risk taking. The fundamental reason why risk of capital is the child of Islam is simple: Islam forbids the hoarding of money for the sake of lending it in return of interest on it. Interest is banned in Islam. Thus, for any Muslim with money, the need is to invest it in person, or via another party.[14] This way, capital is always circulating rather than being static, thus, maximizing its uses. By forbidding interest on loans, Islam also makes available, and freely, the required capital for the risk takers. There is no heavy burden upon the investor having to borrow at high interest, or having to repay crippling interest on loans. Without dwelling on this, today, one of the major, if not the major reason of Third World poverty is debt servicing. There are, of course, other crippling factors for the Third World: administrative inefficiency, incompetence, wars etc; yet, the amount of money such poor countries have to disburse every year (out of their export gains) to repay not their loans, just the services on such loans, means they have little chance of getting out of the poverty-dependency trap. By forbidding usury, Islam not only removes this burden, it also kills the easy avenue for enrichment, and makes business investment the one way to derive profit, which hence promotes productive ventures in industry, trade and farming.

Already noted is how Islam provides a legal basis to commercial transactions.[15]Amari has also gathered 84 original documents, 41 diverse pieces all related to the Maghrib, many in duplicate and original contemporary text, relating to exchanges between Muslims and Christians,[16] the oldest dating from 1150.[17] Islamic procedures from earlier times were adopted by Western counterparts, Wiet et al noting how oral precedents became committed to standardised written forms; notarial practice evolving in Italy in the 11^th century and spreading through southern France and Spain from the middle of the 12^th, affording private individuals the opportunity, of which they were not slow to take advantage, of ensuring legal validity for their smallest transactions.[18]

 The strong Italian presence in the East during the crusades, which will be considered under the next heading, contributed to considerable extent to transfers of similar sort. Some such transfers included rationalised calculating methods for book keeping and the introduction of a simplified system of payment in the shape of cheques and bills of exchange.[19] All these individuals examples were so favourably received in the merchants’ own cities that the most important spheres of social life there were given a stimulus which significantly accelerated their historical progress.[20]

The transfer of the Arabic numeral system and accounting via Leonardo Fibonacci  is one of the most endearing instances of how commercial contact with Islam affected not just mathematical sciences in Western Christendom  but also commercial practice. To illustrate this point, return must be made, again, to the links the Italians  had with the Muslims, this time in North Africa. The Almohad ruler Abd-El Mumen had in the years 1153 or 1154 concluded with the Republic of Genoa  a treaty to secure peace and good rapports between their subjects,[21] whilst in 1166, were passed treaties between the Almohads and Pisa ; Abu Yakub Yusuf, son of Abd-El Mumen, giving back the Pisans the franchises and possessions they had before in Africa.[22] In the 12^th century, the Pisans, Florentines, Genoese, Venetians, Sicilians all had trade establishments in the main city ports of the Maghrib including the Algerian city of Bejaia .[23] Genoa had in 1164 appointed a regular official at Bejaia to supervise trade there; he, perhaps the first `colonial official’ of modern times.[24] Pisa immediately followed suite. The Pisan office had an important repercussion on European culture, for in 1175 its holder was one Bonacci.[25] It was his son Leonardo (c. 1170-1248) who was to show himself the most gifted mathematician of the Middle Age.[26] Leonardo Fibonacci’s father had discovered during his trading exchanges with the North African coast the superiority and advantages of the Arabic numerals for commercial purposes.[27] Hence Leonardo was sent there to learn at the hands of Muslim masters the system.[28]In his father’s warehouse Leonardo first heard of the use of Arabic numerals in which the value of the digit is decimally related to its position.[29]This is our modern way of reckoning. At that time only the Roman system of numbering was known in Europe, and all calculation was with the abacus. Leonardo wrote Liber abacci in 1202 where he advocates the Arabic system, which was the first European scientific appreciation of the method.[30] In his Liber abacci Leonardo gives, amongst his examples, a method for calculating the capacity value of alum in a cargo.[31] Thus the essential notation of modern mathematics, as of modern commerce, arose directly from the trade between Pisa and Bejaia.

Arabic numerals were first used in Europe precisely around that time by notaries charged with drawing up commercial contracts for use in the Islamic world.[32] The progress of such numerals in the Christian West  was slow; but eventually they made their way there. What their history also proves is that it was not the Italians  who carried expertise to the Muslims but quite the reverse.

A further Italian link in the development of the administrative/financial structures of Western Christendom , this time, via Norman Sicily , is with regard to the development of the English exchequer. This matter having already been seen, here thus, it is briefly reminded, that this is yet again another development taking place in the 12^th century. Coincidentally, it happens just when Thomas Brown (Qaid Brun), whose former service with King Roger in Sicily in Regis Secretis, i.e: the Diwan or Doana de Secretis,[33]is transferred to England . It was he who introduced the Exchequer to Henry II’s England after he left Sicily at the accession of William the Bad (1154).[34] The origin of the Exchequer and its Pipe Rolls, may have its beginning in the Sicilian duana (Arabic diwan,) which was largely staffed by Muslim officials, kept voluminous registers, and `seems plainly to go back to Islamic antecedents.'[35]

 However, there remains the manner of calculating, and here must be added another element of impact, again, taking place in the 12^th century, and again, owing to Islamic sources, and this is the use of the abacus.[36] It is worth reminding that it was Adelard of Bath  who wrote treatises on the subject (in the 12^th century), continuing on the traditions of earlier men (Gerbert  and Hermann of Reichnau, both of them, as chapter one of part two has shown, were imbued and inspired by Islamic learning, just as Adelard was). Adelard also spent time in Norman Sicily, and must have familiarised the English with the early rudiments of the Islamic (Arabic) system of calculation, setting an idea into motion, but far from resolving the problem. The development in the 12^th century exactly leads to the Muslim/Sicilian source for the simple reason that the system does require people with knowledge of Islamic accounting or use of decimals. It would have been impossible for English born people to master the use of accounting based on such Islamic sources, for at the time, the Christian West  was devoid of those who could handle Islamic methods of calculation.  Bresc notes, indeed, how the Normans never refrained from using Arabic extensively, and the shortage of well read personnel explains why, still, in 1240, functions of the Duana Secretis are filled with Muslim scribes.[37] If this is to prove something, it proves that it is impossible for anyone not learned in Arabic to run the administration of the Normans in Sicily. Thus, how come, Qaid Brown (Brun) (Thomas Brown,) supposedly an Englishman, should travel from England to run Sicilian administration as modern Western history holds. Qaid Brun, thus, rather than being an Englishman returning to his country after a stay in Sicily, was in reality a Muslim Sicilian, coming to England to run the English exchequer, thus, proving that such expertise travelled from Sicily to England rather than the reverse.

 Finally, Islamic literature in the field of trade influenced subsequent Western literature, and by `coincidence’, the Italian, first. Al-Dimashqi’s 11^th century guide: Kitab al-Ishara (The Book of Guidance)[38]begins with an essay on the true nature of wealth and then proceeds to discuss the necessity of money; how to test a currency; how to evaluate commodities; their prices; how to discern good from defective merchandise; investment in real estate; handicrafts and manufactures; advice for sales people; the advantages of business; the different types of merchants and their duties; how to avoid fraud; how to keep records, wealth protection, and so on and so forth….[39] By some coincidence, Al-Dimashqi's Kitab shows a very close relationship in technique and approach to the subsequent Pegalotti's Practica della Mercatura.[40] A great deal of the merchandise referred to in the two manuscripts are the same, and so is a lot of the technical terminology, including the advice to businessmen, and so are many of the forms of business relationships.[41] (The two manuscripts are available for checking).