Obtaining accurate pre-19th-century socioeconomic data is an arduous task in any country. This is especially true in the Arabian Peninsula where the availability of accurate historical records is quite limited. However, novel economic research suggests that examining Arab poetry through the ages can yield reliable insights into the socioeconomic conditions of yesteryear.
Modern economic statistics, such as gross domestic product, consumer price inflation and labour productivity, are based on advanced methods. Gathering such data requires both considerable financial resources and highly trained statisticians. For this reason, the further one goes back in time, the lower the quality of the data, especially prior to the conclusion of the Second World War.
Data specialists have developed a slew of workarounds to produce estimates of macroeconomic series dating back to the Middle Ages, but the coverage is limited and its reliability is understandably shaky. One famous example is the use of the height of military conscripts to infer living standards during the early part of the Industrial Revolution, when output data was too patchy to permit a credible estimate of national income.
In the Arab world, especially the desert regions inhabited by Bedouins, the challenges of deriving accurate estimates of historical macroeconomic time series are particularly acute. Not only was writing infrastructure limited – when records were kept, the harshness of the climate also posed a continual threat to their integrity, with many records simply withering away due to the intense heat and aridity. The result is large gaps in our knowledge of socioeconomic circumstances prior to the 20th century.
A paper recently published by Sorbonne University’s Dr Clement Gorin and his colleagues proposes a new, artistically driven approach that offers historians genuine cause for optimism.
The authors gathered visual media – paintings – from major European economies from the year 1400 onwards, and produced an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of analysing the emotions expressed by the figures in the works of art. For example, the works of the 19th-century French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir often featured content-looking members of the bourgeoisie, while the 16th-century Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder usually displayed peasants bearing expressions of weariness or hardship.
The novelty of the approach used by Dr Gorin and his colleagues is that they combined this visual sentiment analysis with data on known important socioeconomic episodes throughout European history, such as periods of intense prosperity or acute recessions. They found that the emotions conveyed by the figures in the paintings were strongly correlated with the prevailing socioeconomic conditions, with positive feelings corresponding to booms, contentment to stability, fear to tumult, and so on.
Examining Arab poetry can yield reliable insights into the socioeconomic conditions of yesteryear
The Arab world does not have a homegrown analogue to the more than 600,000 European paintings analysed by Dr Gorin and his colleagues, meaning that an Arab-centric replication is not possible. However, if Arab scholars make the plausible assumption that what Dr Gorin and his colleagues found for visual media also applies to other forms of art, then an alternative arises: poetry, which is often considered to be the favourite class of art among Arab societies both today and throughout history.
Moreover, oral traditions are especially strong in the Middle East, ensuring that much of what could not be transmitted through written records could be maintained by successive generations memorising verses.
Accordingly, enterprising Arab economic historians could compile databases of Arab poetry through the ages and apply the standard suite of AI algorithms designed to detect the sentiment embodied in passages of text. Following the logic of the study by Dr Gorin and his colleagues, the resulting datasets could be used as suggestive proxies for socioeconomic conditions in the Arabian Peninsula prior to the 20th century, when the availability of conventional records is particularly limited.
The value of such an exercise extends beyond intellectual stimulation: an Arab individual’s identity is inextricably linked to the experiences of his or her ancestors. Providing new insights about how our forerunners lived, including when the highs and lows occurred and what might have caused them, makes us more confident in who we are today.
By decoding the emotional and thematic currents of historic Arab poetry, we may unlock a long-obscured socioeconomic narrative – one preserved not in ledgers or census rolls, but in verse and voice.
Karwaan
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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Favourite Quote: Prophet Mohammad's quotes There is reward for kindness to every living thing and A good man treats women with honour
Favourite Hobby: Serving poor people
Favourite Book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite food: Fish and vegetables
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Four-day collections of TOH
Day Indian Rs (Dh)
Thursday 500.75 million (25.23m)
Friday 280.25m (14.12m)
Saturday 220.75m (11.21m)
Sunday 170.25m (8.58m)
Total 1.19bn (59.15m)
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PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
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Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
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