@incollection{publications42961,
           month = {February},
          author = {Mohamed Saleh},
          series = {Oxford handbooks online},
       booktitle = {The oxford handbook of Politics in muslim societies.},
          editor = {Melani Cammett and Pauline Jones},
           title = {Islam and economic development : the case of non-muslim minorities in the  Middle East and north Africa},
         address = {Oxford, Angleterre.},
       publisher = {Oxford University Press.},
            year = {2021},
           pages = {367--654},
             url = {https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/42961/},
        abstract = {This chapter investigates a long-standing puzzle in the economic history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: why do MENA?s native non-Muslim minorities have better socioeconomic (SES) outcomes than the Muslim majority, both historically and today? Focusing on the case of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the largest non-Muslim minority in absolute number in the region, and employing a wide range of novel archival data sources, the chapter argues that Copts? superior SES can be explained neither by Islam?s negative impact on Muslims? SES (where Islam is defined as a set of beliefs or institutions) nor by colonization?s preferential treatment of Copts. Instead, the chapter traces the phenomenon to self-selection on SES during Egypt?s historical conversion from Coptic Christianity to Islam in the aftermath of the Arab Conquest of the then-Coptic Egypt in 641 CE. The argument is that the regressivity-in-income of the poll tax on non-Muslims (initially all Egyptians) that was imposed continuously from 641 to 1856 led to the shrinkage of (non-convert) Copts into a better-off minority. The Coptic-Muslim SES gap then persisted due to group restrictions on access to white-collar and artisanal skills. The chapter opens new areas of research on non-Muslim minorities in the MENA region and beyond.}
}