Status Updates From Ortadoğu

“When the [religion-defined] Ottoman millet system was still functioning in accordance with its own inner logic, ethnic solidarities did not define basic identity nor did they determine ultimate allegiance. The people whom we call, and who now call themselves, Turks and Arabs, did not describe themselves by those names until fairly modern times. [ ] It was only in modern times, under the impact of European ideas

“The rise of mercantilism in the producer-oriented West helped European trading companies, and the states that protected and encouraged them, to achieve a level of commercial organization and a concentration of economic energies unknown and unparalleled in the East, where—as a matter of fact more than of theory—‘market forces’ operated without serious restrictions. The Western trading corporation, with the

“Many stories are told in the Arabic chronicles of how, when the Arabs came as conquerors, they tried to take over the government but couldn’t, because nobody could read the accounts except the accountants, and no one could deal with correspondence except the clerks in the office. And so, the stories relate, perforce the Arabs had to give way, and though they were the unchallenged political and military masters