Differences in Prosperity and Poverty Are The Same In Rural As In Urban

An abundant civilization has many nations, properties, and cities.

• The condition of many of its people is favorable.
• Their dynasties and realms are large.

This is because they have a lot of available labor that brings wealth.

A great surplus of products remains after the necessities of the inhabitants have been satisfied.

This surplus provides for a population far beyond the size and extent of the actual one. It comes back to the people as the profit that they can accumulate.

Prosperity increases and conditions become favorable.

The tax revenues of the ruling dynasty increase because of business prosperity.

Its property increases and its authority grows.

It builds fortresses and castles, found towns, and construct cities.

This is seen in:

• the East
  • Egypt
  • Syria
• the Far East
  • the non-Arab Iraq
  • India
  • China
• the North
  • Europe

When their civilization increased, the property of the inhabitants increased, and their dynasties became great.

Their towns and settlements became numerous, and their commerce and conditions improved.

What is the condition of the Christian merchants who come to the Muslims in the Maghrib?

Their prosperity and affluence is so great that it cannot be fully described.

The same applies to the merchants from the East.

This is even more true for the Far Eastern merchants from Iraq, India, and China.

We hear remarkable stories reported by travelers about their wealth and prosperity.

• These stories are usually received with skepticism.
• The common people who hear them think that their prosperity is from:
  • the greater amount of property that they have
  • the existence of gold and silver mines in their country
  • the gold of the ancient nations that they have appropriated

The only gold mine that we know in the world is in Sudan.

• It is nearer to the Maghrib than to any other country.

Their wealth comes from the merchandise that they export.

• If those countries had a lot of ready property then:
  • they would not export their merchandise in search of money
  • they would have no need of other people’s property.

Astrologers have noticed this and been amazed by the favorable conditions and abundance of property in the East.

• They concluded that the gifts of the stars and the shares of good fortune were larger in the nativities of the East than in the West.

This is correct from the point of view of the correspondence between astrological judgments and terrestrial conditions.

But astrologers give us only the astrological reason.

The terrestrial reason is there is a lot of civilization in the eastern regions.

A large civilization yields large profits because of the large amount of available labor, which is the cause of profit.

Therefore, the East enjoys more prosperity than all other regions.

This is not exclusively the result of the influence of the stars.

• Their influence cannot produce such a result all by itself.

The correspondence between astrological judgments and terrestrial civilization and nature is inevitable.

The relationship between prosperity and civilization may be exemplified by the regions of Ifriqiyah and Barqah.

When their population decreased and their civilization shrank, the condition of their inhabitants decayed.

• They became poor and indigent.

The tax revenues from the region decreased.

The property of the dynasties that ruled there became small. Formerly, the Shi’ah (Fatimid) and Sinhajah (Zirid) dynasties had enjoyed a well-known prosperity and large tax revenues.

They had been able to spend a great deal and pay large allowances.

This went so far that, most of the time, money was brought from al-Qayrawan to the ruler of Egypt for his needs and important business.

The property of the dynasty was so extensive that Jawhar al-Katib carried with him, on his expedition to conquer Egypt, 1,000 loads of money from which he paid the salaries and allowances of the soldiers and the expenditures of the raiders.

The region of the Maghrib was inferior to Ifriqiyah in ancient times.

Still, it had no little (wealth). During the Almohad dynasty, its condition was favorable and its revenues abundant. At this time, the Maghrib has gone down in this respect because of the decrease and shrinkage of civilization there.

Most of the Berber civilization (population) there is gone, and has obviously and palpably become inferior to what it used to be. Its condition has almost become similar to that of Ifriqiyah.

Formerly, its civilization had extended from the Mediterranean to the Sudan country between the longitude(s) of as-Sus in the far West in Morocco and Barqah.

Today, all or most of it is a waste, empty, and desert area, except for the coastal regions or the hills near it.