Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
195. Marginalization of Muslims – A Brief Review- Part 6
By Professor Dr Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
In the Indian Ocean, the use of ship-mounted cannon was unknown. Giant ships there were, but the use of firearms was limited to small caliber muskets. India, Persia, East Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia were definitely behind Europe in this important technology.
This time lag may be explained by the vagaries of history and geography. Gunpowder, invented by the Chinese, was introduced into Central Asia and Persia by Genghiz Khan’s troops. The Tatars and the Turks, who often worked as allies of the Mongols, learned its use from the Mongols. As the Tatars accepted Islam, and the Turks expanded into Anatolia and Egypt, the use of gunpowder became known in the Mediterranean world. The knowledge rapidly spread westward through Muslim influence and Venetian traders, and by 1450 was available in Morocco, Spain and Portugal.
The Indian Ocean was far from the major battle routes of the Mongols, Tatars and the Turks. Through much of the 15 th century, Central Asia, Persia and West Asia were sorting out the aftermath of the Timurid invasions (1376-1402). India had broken up into small kingdoms after the reign of Muhammed bin Tughlaq (d. 1355). Rajas and Sultans ruled in Bengal, Gujrat, the Deccan and the south. The only power that could have provided this technology was China. But the China of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) had retreated into itself after the great voyages of the Muslim Admiral Zheng Yi (1402-1415).
Asia therefore fell behind Europe in adopting the technology of gunpowder for naval warfare. When the Portuguese cannon roared (1502 onwards), there was no one in the littoral states of the Indian Ocean to answer it. The situation did not change much in the succeeding centuries. The Safavid dynasty rose in Persia (1500), and the Moghul Empire consolidated its hold on India (1526). But their naval records were dismal. It took the Safavids more than a hundred years to expel the Portuguese from the Straits of Hormuz, and they accomplished it only with the help of the British (1622). As for the Moghuls, they made no attempt to expel the Portuguese either from Goa or Diu and Daman, accepting instead Portuguese protection for Moghul shipping in the Arabian Sea. Only Emperor Shah Jehan made a feeble attempt to protect Bengal from Portuguese piracy but it too fizzled out after his tenure. A century later, Tippu Sultan of Mysore made a serious attempt to build a navy. The Mysore navy occupied the Laccadive Islands and challenged the rising power of the British. But this attempt proved to be too little, too late. Tippu fell in battle with the British in 1799.
Alone among the Muslim powers, the Ottoman Turks built a credible navy. Sultan Selim (d. 1520) took the initiative in this direction. Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent (d. 1566) expanded on the legacy of his father. From 1530 onwards, the Ottomans were active both in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Drawing upon the considerable experience of Algerian corsairs and the ship building expertise of the Egyptians, a formidable navy was built up. By 1560 they had stopped Portuguese marauding in the Indian Ocean and had established their naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. The Battle of Lepanto (1571), however, contained Turkish expansion into the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, the Turks continued their missions in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean through much of the 16 th century. In 1588, in an encounter off the southern coast of Zanzibar, a Portuguese fleet sent from Goa defeated a Turkish naval patrol. This encounter marked the farthest reach of the Turkish navy in the Indian Ocean. Thereafter, the coastal areas north of Zanzibar remained Islamic whereas those located further south fell into the Portuguese orbit.
However, even the powerful Ottomans treated the navy as a stepchild, allocating to it only a small portion of the total budget. For instance, in 1652, during the reign of Mehmet IV, the total expenditures for the Ottoman Empire were slated at 16,400 purses of silver. Of this amount, 10,000 purses were allocated to the army, 960 purses were allocated to the emperor’s kitchen, 255 purses to the Emperor’s stables and 988 purses were allocated to the navy. The navy occupied about the same position in the budget as the maintenance of the royal kitchen.
The neglect of the Ottoman navy showed up in the 17 th century. After a promising start in the mid-16 th century, when the Ottomans dominated the Mediterranean Sea and challenged the Portuguese in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, their naval forces regressed into a second tier position. By 1645, the Venetians were able to successfully blockade not only the Aegean Sea but also Istanbul itself. The siege was lifted in 1657 only after a determined effort made by Grand Vizier Kurpulu. In the Indian Ocean, the Turkish presence became only symbolic. When the Dutch and the British entered the Indian Ocean in the 17 th century, the Ottomans were not a factor in the ensuing struggle for supremacy in Asia.
Loss of initiative at sea meant a loss of trade. Between 1502 and 1530, the Portuguese severely disrupted the Indian Ocean trade. Occupying important choke points in Malacca, Goa, Hormuz, Mombasa and Zanzibar, they instituted a pass system and levied taxes on all ships passing through those points. Not even the hajjis could go for hajj unless the Portuguese agents stamped their papers. Indian pepper flowed to Lisbon on Portuguese ships and from there to the ports of Europe, bypassing West Asia. Alexandria in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean experienced an economic depression. With the rise of Ottoman naval power (1530-1570), an equilibrium developed wherein Turkish as well as Portuguese ships shared in the trade. After the Battle of Lepanto (1571), the Turkish navy went into a steady decline although sporadic attempts were made to revive it.
After the year 1600, the Dutch and the British displaced the Portuguese and cornered the Indian Ocean trade. Trade by land routes continued but the initiative increasingly passed on to Europe. After 1700, with the advance of the Russian armies towards the Black Sea, it was the Armenians and not the Persians or the Turks who controlled the land trade across Russia to Europe. Bereft of trade, West Asia withered, its economies shrank and it lost its initiative in world affairs. At about the same time, the dismantling of the Moghul and Safavid dynasties (1720-1760) severely disrupted the land trade through the passes in Afghanistan, further contributing to the economic and social disintegration of the entire region.
The conservative religious establishment in the Muslim world played a role in delaying the introduction of new technologies and new ideas. The history of the printing press offers an illustration. Block printing was invented in China some time before the second century. As early as the year 875, in the reign of Harun ar Rashid, it was known in Baghdad. The technology traveled westward and was introduced into Europe through contacts with the Muslims of Spain and Sicily. Over the years the Europeans made improvements in the art of printing and by 1445, mechanical printing plates were widely used in Germany. Mass printing facilitated a wide circulation of new ideas and was a principal factor in the success of the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther (d. 1546) and John Calvin (d. 1564). By contrast, there was resistance to the introduction of printing in the Muslim world, where a whole industry had grown up around the art of hand copying and reproducing the Qur’an. The katibs resisted the introduction of the printing press because it meant a loss of their livelihood. Their position was supported by conservative kadis who felt that the Word of God must not be defiled by contact with a machine. It was not until the 18 th century, well after political decay had set in and Europe had seized the initiative in technology and politics that the kadis and katibs relented.
In 1721, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha sent a delegation to Paris and instructed it to report back on the arts and technologies that might be introduced in the empire. Following the return of this delegation, the first printing press was established in Istanbul in 1727, more than three hundred years after it had been introduced into Germany, France and England. It was introduced into the decaying Moghul and Safavid empires shortly thereafter. This time lag held back the development of art, science and technology in the Muslim world at a time when Europe saw a rapid introduction of new ideas and new technologies. The political disintegration that enveloped the Muslim world in the 18 th century only increased the technological gap. By the time Napoleon invaded Egypt (1799) and the British defeated Tippu Sultan of Mysore (1799) and consolidated their hold on India, it was already too late.
Parochial religious zeal played an important part in the disintegration of two of the principal dynasties, namely the Moghuls in India and the Safavids in Persia. We have discussed at length in earlier chapters how Islam turned inwards after the Mongol disasters and how the Sufi awliya saved the day for the Muslims. It was this new wave of Islam, spiritual in content, amalgamated with the cultures of the new nations entering the fold of faith that spread into Persia, Central Asia, India, Indonesia and Africa. We have used the term “folk Islam” to describe the composite culture that emerged after the Mongols.
The religious establishment, consisting of kadis and ulema, were suspicious of any departure from strict adherence to the Shariah and were not reconciled to the power of the Sufis. Within the Islamic world itself, there was a tension between the Sufis and the ulema. (The tension continues to this day as a not-too-polite debate between the “Sufi” and “Salafi” partisans among Muslims). The 16 th century produced several kings and emperors who resonated to Sufi culture, founded new dynasties and expanded them into major empires. The real or perceived excesses of these monarchs produced a reaction in the more orthodox circles.
By the latter part of the 17 th century, the orthodox had prevailed over the Sufis in the centers of political power. The triumph of the conservative ulema increased tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, between Shi’a and Sunni and played a direct role in the disintegration of the Moghul and Safavid empires.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
