Islamic Economics: Studies In Canada On Islamic Economics History

Studies of History of Islamic Economics in Canada Ismail Yurdakok [email protected] International Journal of Maritime History, Professor Maya Shatzmiller’s (of The University of Western Ontario) Studies and Indian Ocean World Center are three main sources to reach Islamic Economics History Studies of Canada. Apart from her the other studies, Maya Shatzmiller’s works on the history of Islamic economics shows how a scholar should study in his/her field that we selected only some of them: a Jewish female scholar Shatzmiller is the faculty member of The University of Western Ontario, Department of History and her studies go to a 35 years past. She has an undergraduate degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in political science in 1965 and Islamic history in 1968. And she completed her doctorate dissertation in Ax-en-Provence of France on Ibn Khaldun, in 1974. He worked in Sorbon University and in Princeton (1991-96), and from 1999 to present she has been in Canada in last ten years. Her current research is economic history of Islamic societies. Some of her publications: “Labour in the Medieval Islamic World. Arab History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, 4. E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1994, viii+443 pp.”, “Her Day in Court: Women’s Property Rights and Islamic Law in Fifteenth Century Granada. Islamic Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2007, 277 pp.”, “Unity and Variety of Land Tenure and Cultivation Patterns in the Medieval Maghreb” Maghreb Review, special number: “The Question of Maghrib Unity”, Proceedings of the Second Annual Conference of North African Studies, London, (25-26 June 1982): 24-8; “Professions and Ethnic Origin of Urban Labourers in Muslim Spain: Evidence from a Moroccon Source” Awraq 5(1983): 149-159; Aspects of women’s participation in the economic life of later medieval Islam: Occupations and mentalities” Arabica 35(1988): 3658; “Some Social and Economic Aspects of ‘Waqf khayri’ in 14th Century Fez” Anaquel de estudios arabes 2(1991):193-217.; “A Misconstrued Link: Europe and the Economic History of Islamic Trade” Relazioni economiche tra Europe e mondo islamico. Secc. XIII-XVIII, acuro di S. Cavaciocchi, Firenzo 2007, 237-415. Le monnier l Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica; “F. Datini”, Atti delle Settimane di Studi e altri convegni, 38. (Maya’s entry:) “Tidjara” in the Economic History of Trade in the Islamic World Vol. 10(1995): 469-475. Some of original conference papers (only on Islamic economics history) of Maya Shatzmiller will give a fresh look at for especially the studies of junior scholars of Islamic economics that she patiently goes on her studies for years: “The System of Production in the Medieval Islamic City and its Effect on Trade”, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 1984; “The Theory of Labor in Medieval Islam and its link to the Guild Organization”, American Oriental Society 196th Meeting, New Haven, March 9-12, 1986; “Apprenticeship in the Islamic Medieval Mediterranean -the great unknown,” The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1992; “Maliki Waqf of Nickels and Dimes: Property Rights and the Public Good in the Islamic West”, American Oriental Society 210th Meeting, Portland, March 12th-15th, 2000; “The First Commercial Revolution: Colonization, the Islamic Empire and Trade, 750-1000 AD”, Utrect University, March 29, 2007; “Slaves, Money, Trade and the Development of Credit in the Islamic Caliphate, 8th-10th Centuries”, Conference on Medieval Social and Political Institutions, The University of Western Ontario, November 3rd, 2007; “Textile Production and Economic Growth in the Islamic World: The Long View.” Fashioning the World, University of Alberta

Edmonton, 18-21 August 2008; “Red Sea, Port Cities and Economic Growth, EighthTenth Centuries” Red Sea Conference, University of Southhampton, September 24-26, 2008; “Money, Trade, Slaves, and Division of Labor: An Early Commercial Revolution in the Islamic Caliphate”. 24th Congress of the Union Europeene des Arabisants et Islamisants (UEAI) University of Leipzig, 24-28 September, 2008, the same paper was also presented in School of Oriental and African studies, University of London, UK 20th October, 2008. Maya is also elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and one of her courses taught (research seminars) is ‘Selected Topics in Islamic Economic History in the Mediterrranean.” (graduate seminar final thesis) Looking at the Maya Shatzmiller’s book reviews on the books of Islamic economics history in different journals is also useful that how she follows the literature in her field: Amnon Cohen and Bernard Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the 16th Century(Princeton 1978); Andrew M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World(Cambridge, 1983); Abraham L. Udovitch, ed., The Islamic Middle East , 700-1900: Studies in Economic and Social History(Princeton 1981); Eliyahu Ashtor: Levant trade in the later Middle Ages, (Princeton 1983); Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsman of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, Crafts and Food Production in an Urban Setting, 1520-1650. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. (New York:1984); Olivia Remie Constable, Trade&Traders in Muslim Spain. The Commercial realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life&Thought, 24. (Cambridge University Press, 1994); Gene W. Heck, Charlemagne, Muhammad and the Arab Roots of Capitalism, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 2006. International Journal of Maritime History is published by the history department of Memorial University of New Foundland has got a lot of useful articles and book reviews about Islamic economics history that give original thoughts for future studies. For example, an article is seen in the ‘Research Notes’ section of the Journal’s volume XIX, Number 2 (December 2007): Toufoul Abou-Hodeib, “Quarantine and Trade: The Case of Beirut, 1831-1840”, pp. 223-244. Book Reviews in the same issue: Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian Maritime World 1400-1800: Its Fabrics of Power and Dynamics of Exchanges (by K. G. Deng) p. 439. Carmel Vassallo and Michelo D’Angelo (eds.), Anglo-Saxons in the Mediterranean: Commerce, Politics and Ideas (XVII-XX Centuries) (by Maria Christina Chatziioannou) p.445. Catharina Purwani Williams, Maiden Voyages: Eastern Indonesian Women on the Move (by J. N. F. M. A Campo) p.469. Graham Gerard Ong-Webb (ed.), Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the Malacca Straits (by Kenneth McPherson) p. 489. Adam J. Young, Contemporary Maritime Piracy in South-east Asia: History, Causes and Remedies (by John F. Bradford) p. 490. Two articles is seen in Number 1 (of Volume XIX, June 2007): J. N. F. M. B Campo, “Asymmetry, Disparity and Cyclicity: Charting the Piracy Conflict in Colonial Indonesia” pp. 35-62; Maria Christina Chatziioannou, “Shaping Greek-Tunisian Commercial Relations in the Ottoman Mediterranean World: The Efessios Merchant House” pp. 161-180. Book Reviews in the same issue: Stuart Jenks, (ed.), Robert Sturmy’s Commercial Expedition to the Mediterranean (1457/8) by Pauline Croft, p. 359. Alan Villiers, William Facey, Yacoub Al-Hijji, Grace Pundyk (intro.), Sons of Sinbad by Erik Gilbert, p. 399. Stefan Eklöf, Pirates in Paradise: A Modern History of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Marauders by Michael Pearson, p. 414. Another book reviews are appeared in the Journal’s issues that these books are interested in Islamic economics history: Kizilov, Mikhail B.(’s book) “The Black Sea and Slave Trade: The Role of Crimean Maritime Towns in the Trade in Slaves and Captives in the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” XVII, 1, 211-235. Idris Bostan, Beylikten Imparatorluga Osmanli Denizciligi (Ottoman Navigation from Principality to Empire. XVIII, 2, 488-89. Harlaftis, Gelina and Vassallo, Carmel (eds.). New Directions in Mediterranean Maritime History, XVIII, 1, 407-410. Harris, W. V. (ed.) Rethinking the Mediterranean , XVII, 2, 369-71. Heers, Jacques. The Barbary Corsairs: Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1480-1580, XVI, 1,

292-94. Karabell, Zachary. Porting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal, XVI, 2, 339-340. Panzac, Daniel. La Caravana maritime: marins européens marchands ottomans en Mediterranée (1680-1830), XVIII, 1, 411-413. Tasha Vorderstrasse, AlMina. A Port of Antioch from Late Antiquity to the End of Ottomans, by Ruthi Gertwagen, XX, 1, (June 2008), p. 358. Hassan S. Khalileh, Admiralty and Maritime Laws in the Mediterranean Sea (ca. 800-1050): The Kitab Akriyat al-Sufun vis-a-vis the Nomos Rhodion Nautikos, by Molly Greene, p.360. Nordin Hussin, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka: Dutch Melaka and English Penang, 1780-1830, by Alfons van der Kraan, p. 365. Axelson, Eric(’s book), Vasco da Gama: The Diary of His Travels through African Waters 1497-1499, XII, 2, pp. 244-245 (probably will also say Islamic trading cities in the Eastern Africa shores in that years.) K. Dharmasena, The Port of Colombo, XI, 248-249. Stefan Diller, Die Danen in Indien, Südostasien und China (1620-1845), XII, 1, 346-347. Anthony Farrington, Catalogue of East India Company Ships’ Journals and Logs 1600-1834, XII, 2, 258-260. Roderich Ptak, China’s Seaborne Trade with South and Southeast Asia(1200-1750), XII, 2, 236-238. Himanshu Prabha Ray and Jean-François Salles(eds.), Tradition and Archaeology: Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, XII, 1, 343-346. Pamela Stratham and Rica Erickson (eds.), A Life on the Ocean Wave: Voyages to Australia, India and the Pasific from the Journals of Captain George Bayly 1824-1844, XII, 2, 269-270. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama, XI, 2, 198200. James H. Thomas, The East India Company and the Provinces in the Eighteenth Century, v. I. Portsmouth and the East India Company 1700-1815, XII, 2, 260-261. Jaap R. Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices. East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries, VIII, 1, 282283. David L. White, Competition and Collaboration. Parsi Merchants and the English East India Company in 18th Century India, IX, 1, 277-278. Edhem Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century, XII, 2, 263-265. Hassan S. Khalilieh, Islamic Maritime Law: An Introduction, XII, 2, 240-242. Anne Bulley, The Bombay Country Ships 1790-1833, XII, 2, 257-258. Sinnappah Arasaratnam and Aniruddha Ray, Masulipatnam and Cambay, A History of Two Port Towns 1500-1800, IX, 2, 196-198. Stephen Frederic Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600-1750, VIII, 1, 280-282. Kenneth, Mcpherson, The Indian Ocean. A History of People and the Sea, VII, 2, 219-221. Lynda Norene Shaffer, Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500, VIII, 2, 228-229. G. D. , Snooks, et al. (eds.) Exploring Southeast Asia’s Economic Past, VI, 1, 256-258. Frank Broeze (ed.) Brides of the Sea. Port Cities of Asia from the 16th-20th Centuries, II, 2, 288-295. Satish Chandra (ed.). The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics, I, 1, 195-198. Angela Schottenhammer (ed.)., Trade and Transfer across East Asian “Mediterranean”, XVIII, 388-389. Dionisius A. Agius, In the Wake of Dhow: The Arabian Gulf and Oman, XV,1, 271-273. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong, Between the Sea and Lagoon: An Eco-Social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana c. 1850 to Recent Times, XIV, 2, 454-455. Ya‘qub Yusuf Al-Hijji, The Art of Dhow Building in Kuwait, XV, 1, 271-273. Saif Marzooq Al-Shamlan, Pearling in the Arabian Gulf: A Kuwaiti Memoir, XIV, 1, 398-399. Clare Anderson, Convicts in the Indian Ocean: Transportation from South Asia to Mauritius, 1815-53, XIV, 1, 405-407.Rene J. Barendse, The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of Seventeenth Century, XV, 2, 388-390. Susan S. Bean, Yankee India: American Commercial and Cultural Encounters with India in the Age of Sail, 1784-1860, XIV, 1, 367-368. H.V. Bowen and Margarette Lincoln and Nigel Rigby (eds.), The Worlds of the East India Company, XIV, 2, 403-405. Mehmet Bulut, Ottoman-Dutch Economic Relations in the Early Modern Period 1571-1699, XIV, 2, 395-396. Silvia Orvietani Busch, Medival Mediterranean Ports: The Catalan and Tuscan Coasts, 1100 to 1235 (it is possible to find notes on trade between Muslims and non-Muslims), XV, 1, 243-245. J.N. F. M. Campo, Engines of Empire: Steamshipping and State Formation in Colonial Indonesia, XV, 2, 414-415. Peter N. Davies, The Trade Makers: Elder Dempster in West Africa, 1852- 1972, 1973-1989, XIV, 1, 370-371. Kay De and James Tertius, Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian 1809-1922 (it is most possible to find the traces Ottoman trade policy of Macedonia, and the majority of the population of

Macedonia were Muslims at that time), XIII, 1, 345-346. Howard Dick, Vincent Houben, Thomas Lindblad and Thee Kian Wie, Emergence of a National Economy: An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800-2000, XIV, 2, 422-424. Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, XIII, 1, 230-232. Robin Law (ed.), The English in West Africa, 1685-1688: The Local Correspondence of the Royal African Company of England 1681-1699, Part 2, XV, 1, 247-249. A ‘forum’ is seen between , the pages 251-292 in the issue of volume XX, 1 (June 2008), Forum: The Global Fish Market, C. 1850-2005 and Jesus M. Martinez Milan’s paper in this forum: “Integrating Western Saharan Coastal Fisheries into the International Economy, 1885-1975”, pp. 281-292. “Anglo-Indian Sea Trade and Greek Commercial Enterprises in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century” is seen as an article written by Katerina Vourkatioti in the volume of XI, 1, pp. 117-148 and another articles: Recruitment and Control of Indian Seamen: Calcutta, 1880-1935, IX, 1, 1-18 written by G. Balachandran; John H. Munro, “The Low Countries’ Export Trade in Textiles with the Mediterranean Basin, 1200-1600: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Comparative Advantages in Overland and Maritime Trade Routes”, XI, 2, 1-30. Christopher Wake, “The Great Ocean-going Ships of Southern China in the Age of Chinese Maritime Voyaging to India, Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries”, IX, 2, 51-81. J. N. F. M. Campo, “The Accommodation of Dutch, British and German Maritime Interests in Indonesia, 1890-1910,” IV, 1, 141. John McDonald and Ralph Shlomowitz, “Fares Charged for Transporting Indian Indentured Labour to Mauritius and the West Indies, 1850-1873”, III, 81-99. J. N. F. M. Campo, “A Profound Debt to the Eastern Seas: Documentary History and Literary Representation of Berau’s Maritime Trade in Conrad’s Malay Novels”, XII, 2, 85-125. Elena Frangakis-Syrett, “Commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean from Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries: The City-Port of Izmir (Turkey) and Its Hinterland” , X, 2, 125-154. Henk den Heijer, “Dutch Shipping and Trade with West Africa, 1674-1740”, XI, 1, 53-79 And a review essay: J. Forbes Munro, “African Shipping: Reflections on the Maritime History of Africa South of Sahara, 1800-1914,” II, 2, 163-182. Some knowledges may be also found in the Canadian Journal of History; for example this book review is interested in Islamic economics history: D. B. Freeman(’s book), The Straits of Malacca: Gateway or Gauntlet, reviewed by Doajiong Zha, XXXIX, 2, p. 411 (August 2004) this book gives some knowledge about long distance trade between Asia and the West and political economy of the region and rather than the more conventional historical-narrative approach but an innovative adoption of an interdisciplinary analytical perspective. Also another book review by Konrad Eisenbichler on the J. Martin and D. Romano’s (eds.), Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797, that international economy between Venice’s and Muslim countries was very active in that centuries. Canadian Journal of History is published by Department of History of University of Saskatchewan and approximately three-fourths of the articles and reviews are by scholars who research and teach at universities in Canada. Another book reviews in the journal about our field: M. N. Pearson, Port Cities and Intruders: The Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the Early Modern Era (reviewed by Ivana Elbi), XXXV, 2, (August 2000), p. 392-393, R. L. Roberts, Two Worlds of Cotton: Colonialism and the Regional Economy of the French Sudan, 1800-1946 (reviewed by Martin A. Klein), XXXIII, 3, (December 1998), p. 488. J. Koponen, Development for Exploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884-1914 (reviewed by Philip Stigger), XXXI, 2, (August 1996), H. Inalcik, D. Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (reviewed by James A. Reilly), XXXI, 3, (December 1996). J. F. Richards, The New Cambridge History of India: The Mughal Empire, (reviewed by N. K. Wagle), XXX, 1, (April 1995), p. 162. Some studies of faculty members from different universities of Canada are also

interested in Islamic economics history Ariel Salaman’s studies(faculty member in the department of history of Queen’s University): “The Age of Tulips: Confluence and Conflict in Early Modern Consumer Culture (1500-1700) in Consumption in the Ottoman Empire”, ed. Donald Quataert (State University of New York Press, 2000); “An Ancient Regime Revisted: Privatization and Political Economy in the 18th century Ottoman Empire.” Politics&Society 21 1993 (winner of the Omer Lutfi Barkan Prize for the best article by the Turkish Studies Association of USA). Another name, professor Olatunji Ojo gives the course of African Economic History in the history departnet of Brock University of Ontario and the website of this course is useful for scholarly articles written on history of Saharan and SubSaharan trade; commercial sectors and books recommended on African economic history from Ghana to Sudan. Victor Ostapchuk has been in Canada in last ten years, in the department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations of University of Toronto from 1999 to today; one of his research specializations is Ottoman financial and timar systems; he is also editor-in-chief “Studies in Ottoman Documents Pertaining to Ukraine and the Black Sea Countries,” (in Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University); James A. Reilly has been lecturer in the same department of University of Toronto from 1987 to present and one of his courses taught: “Social and Economic History of Modern Middle East.” His research specialization is “History of Ottoman Syria between the 18th and 20th centuries.” Research and writing have focused on the social an economic history of Damascus and Hama. His refereed monograph: “A Small Town in Syria: Ottoman Hama in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Bern and London: Peter Lang, 2002. Some of his articles in refereed journals: “Sharia Court Registers and Land Tenure around 19th-Centuries Damascus,” Mesa Bulletin 21 (1987): 155-169; “Status Groups and Propertyholding in the Damascus Hinterland, 1828-80,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (1989): 517-539; “Damascus Merchants and Trade in the Transition to Capitalism,” Canadian Journal of History 27 (1992): 1-27; “From Workshops to Sweatshops: Damascus Textiles and the World Economy in the Last Ottoman Century,” Review 16 (1993): 199-213; “Women in the Economic Life of LateOttoman Damascus,” Arabica 42 (1995): 86-113; “Regions and Markets of Ottoman Syria: Comparisons and Transformations,” Chronos no.10(2004), pp. 111-144. Professor M. E. Subtelny as an expert on Central Asia and Iran gives courses classical Persian language and literature, history of medieval Iran and Central Asia in the University of Toronto, his article, “A Medieval Persian Agricultural Manual in Context: The Irshad alzira‘a in Late Timurid and Early Safavid Khorasan,” Stud. Ir. 22, 1993, pp. 167-217 and his paper in the same subject “Making a Case for Agriculture: the Irshad al-zira‘a and its Role in the Political Economy of Early Safavid Iran” was submitted and published in the Proceedings of the Second European Conference of Iranian Studies, held in Bamberg in 1991. Paul E. Lovejoy from York University (department of history) of Canada, his book: Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade in West Africa (Trenton NJ: Africa World Press). In Acadiau University (of Nova Scotia) history department, Dr. Jamie Whidden follows in the class some parts of the book of Francis Robinson, ed., The Cambridge History of of the Islamic World (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and one of the parts is The Economy in Muslim Societies (pp, 124-163). The Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC) probably will (also) do useful studies about Islamic economics history in the future years. IOWC at McGill University is a research initiative and resource base establishment to promote the study of the history, economy and cultures of lands and peoples touching the Indian ocean World –from Africa to the Middle East, India, Indonesia and Australia to China. A complex regional trading system since the 10th Century, the Indian Ocean World constituted the first ‘global’ economy. Useful notes can be found in the web site of the centre saying: Today the region comprises 50 per cent of the planet’s population and its forecast to become the leading world economy by 2020. The IOWC pursues an interdisciplinary approach inspired by French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) who posited history as an ongoing interaction between human and

natural forces, encompassing geography, environment, climate and disease. The Centre’s current research priorities include: · the rise and development of the first global economy · human migration and diaspora · slavery, the slave trade and slave diaspora · the exchange of commodities, technology and ideas IOWC Phd students. Michael Ferguson: His master’s thesis, from McGill University (2006) “Transportation and Communication Networks in Late Ottoman Salonico, 18001912” focused on role of transportation and communication networks (such as railroads, steamships and telegraphs) played in the rapid growth of Salonica ( now a big city in northern Greece) in the late nineteenth century. Another graduate student Natasha Shivji’s research is currently comparing the global contact of the East and West African peoples, roughly before 1497, with the imperialist contact beginning in the 16th century. She is focusing city-states Kilwa and Timbuktu to show the transition of the city-states from economic, intellectual and political prosperity to disparity with the invasion of the Portuguese seaborne empire on the coast of East and west Africa. Rashid Chowdhury is currently pursuing a Phd in history at McGill, with a focus on the socio-political and economic aspects of the Hijaz Railway, constructed by the Ottoman Empire between 1900 and 1908. IOWC visiting lecturer Himanshu Prabha Ray gave a seminar on 28 November 2008 at McGill University, “The Greeks in the Western Indian Ocean and The Coming of Islam” The larger debate that this presentation addresses relates to maritime contacts leading to the period from 1250 to 1350, which Abu-Lughod has viewed as a “turning point in world history” when “the Middle Eastern heartland region, linking the eastern Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean, constituted a geographic fulcrum on which West and East were then roughly balanced” in her book Before European Hegemony: The World System 1250-1350 (Oxford University Press, New York, 1989). Thus presentation reviews recent archaeological reports from the western Indian Ocean, especially between the Red Sea and the Indian subcontinent with two objectives in mind: one, to assess the legacy of the Greeks who had sailed the region from the fifth-fourth centuries BCE to at seafaring activity with the introduction of Islam in the Indian Ocean world. It thus focuses on the region of the Red Sea and its links with centres in the western Indian Ocean, thereby shifting the fulcrum westward from the ‘central Islamic lands’ . Visiting professor of the IOWC Himanshu Prabha Ray is a professor of Archeology and Maritime History in the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Indian Ocean Project was established by Gwyn Campbell in 1993 at the University of the Witwatesrand, Johannesburg South Africa; Campbell studied as a specialist in the in the economic history of the Indian Ocean, his publication-in-progress include: Africa and the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to 1900, scheduled to appear in the new Cambridge Economic History of Africa series. Following Dr. Campbell’s appointment as a Canada Research Chair at McGill University in 2004, the Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC) based at McGill was established. Abdul Sheriff one of the research directors of the Centre from Zanzibar, his forthcoming book (2009) The Dhow Culture of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Commerce&Islam, London: C. Hurst&Co. (Dhow: single-masted ship, esp as used by Arab sailors for coastal voyages/ a lateen-rigged sailing vessel used by Arabs). McGill Institute of Islamic Studies is another centre, Islamic economics researches may be found in the production of this Institute; for example, reseracher of the Institute Uner Turgay’s article: “Ottoman-Russian Commercial Rivalry,” was appeared in Varia Turcica, Vol. XV, Special Issue. Istanbul, Washington, Paris: The ISIS Press, 1991, pp. 59-65; and current project of Dr. Turgay: International Trade and Socio-economicChange in Eastern Black Sea Coast, 1829-1900. The other studies produced by Canadian scholars in this subject: “Shah ‘Abbas, the English East India Company, and the Cannoneers of Fars” article of

Colin P. Mitchell, faculty member of Dalhouse University, department of history, it was published in In Itinerario: European Journal of Overseas Expansion. Vol. 24 (2000), No.2, pp. 104-120. Khalid Mustafa Medani, from MCGill, his article: “The Political Economy of an Islamist State: Sudan” in Political Islam, eds. Joel Beinin and Joe Stork, eds. University of California Press, 1997. Dr. Miriam Alide-Unzaga, research fellow in School of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Museum Ethnography of Oxford University gave Veronika Gervers Memorial Lecture about “Inscriptions in Medieval Textiles: Possible Connections between Fatimid and Andalusi Pieces” in the department of Near&Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto on October 3, 2008. As a fact that, Canadian scholars have produced a lot of studies in Islamic economics history that a lot of Islamic countries could not produce in this quantity and quality. Humanitarian policy of Canada and Canadian academic environment are also a hope that much studies in this field will be done in the future inshaAllah (God willing).