ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most important single fact shaping Middle Eastern society was that, in the early Middle Ages, the Byzantine and Sasanian states did not break down—in contrast to the Western Roman Empire— and that the Arabs soon succeeded in setting up a strong and fairly centralized government. Thus whereas in Western Europe the ground was cleared for the growth of numerous and vigorous independent centers of power and activity—Church, city states, feudal principalities, universities, guilds, and other associations—in the Middle East the continued power of the state stifled such developments. The social and political consequences were numerous and momentous. The main economic consequence was that the state and its bureaucracy made it almost impossible for groups of producers to enjoy sufficient autonomy to set up institutions that could further their interests and expand their economic base, thereby enlarging the productive capacity of the economy. Thus in European towns the merchants and craftsmen were able to form independent guilds and city states that pursued industrial and commercial policies favorable to themselves; even in some national monarchies, notably England and France, their needs were taken into account. But in the Middle East, as indeed in most parts of the world, there were no city states and municipal autonomy was limited; guilds may or may not have existed before the Ottoman period, but they too were controlled by the government. 1
