Time for Middle East to choose if it wants to be Bronze Age Ugarit or Phoenicia

Three thousand years ago, around 1177 BC, the most connected world of its age came apart within a single lifetime.

Egypt, the Hittites, Babylon, Mycenaean Greece, Cyprus and the port city of Ugarit, in what is today northern Syria, had built a remarkable system of trade and diplomacy.

Kings wrote to one another as “brothers”. Copper, tin, grain and ideas moved across the eastern Mediterranean.

Then drought, migration, earthquakes, war and brittle institutions arrived at the same time. Within a few decades, great cities burned. In Greece, writing itself was forgotten.

Our world is not collapsing in the same historic proportions. But it is fragmenting.

The World Trade Organisation estimates that new tariffs and trade restrictions now cover 11 per cent of global imports, the highest share in more than 15 years.

For the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, and for emerging markets more broadly, the difference between collapse and fragmentation matters enormously.

Uncomfortable parallels

Fragmentation is not destiny. It is a test of preparation, of leadership and of trust.

The Bronze Age does not tell us what exactly will happen in this day and age. It tells us what tends to happen when connected systems lose connections, and what separates those who fall from those who rebuild.

The first lesson is that no single shock was responsible. Several stresses arrived together and fed on one another.

01:40

UAE prepared for worst but seeks diplomatic solution to regional

The parallels are uncomfortable. Tin and copper then; semiconductors, rare earths and energy now. Drought then; climate stress and food insecurity now. A great power rivalry then; the US-China rivalry and wars in Ukraine and our own region now. Just-in-time supply chains and high debt are our version of the brittle palace economy.

Exposed economies

Emerging economies were among the greatest beneficiaries of globalisation. That is precisely why they are among the most exposed to its reversal.

Many OIC economies depend on one or two exports. Much of the Middle East and North Africa imports a large share of its food, and the Gulf imports most of what it eats.

Debt, trade and reserves are still largely denominated in dollars. Many of our countries lie in regions already facing heat, drought and water scarcity, the same stresses that broke the Bronze Age. And our populations are young: a great asset when there are jobs, and a source of frustration when there are not.

Fragmentation

Fragmentation reaches us through several channels at once. Disruption in the Red Sea showed how quickly a single corridor can raise costs from Egypt to the Gulf.

The war in Ukraine showed how exposed North Africa and the Middle East are to a single breadbasket.

Higher global interest rates have pushed several OIC members to seek International Monetary Fund support. And access to advanced chips, AI models and cloud computing is increasingly shaped by geopolitics.

Yet the OIC is not one economy, and its members will diverge, just as the Bronze Age kingdoms did.

Egypt survived, diminished. Ugarit, rich and sophisticated, vanished. Its final letters described enemy ships on the horizon and no help coming. Phoenicia, a smaller and nimbler neighbour, rose from the same ashes to carry trade and an alphabet across the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians did not have the largest armies. They had ships, trust and the ability to trade with everyone.

The choice

The Middle East can be Ugarit or Phoenicia. The choice is ours.

There are good reasons for optimism. Few groups of nations maintain working relationships with the US, China, Europe, India, Russia and Africa at the same time. The UAE and its neighbours do.

In a world of blocs, the trusted connector becomes more valuable, not less.

Manufacturers diversifying their supply chains are already looking to the UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and Morocco. Gulf ports, airports and free zones link Asia, Africa and Europe. And Gulf and South-East Asian capital can finance development across the Muslim world as western capital grows more cautious.

01:13

Egyptian Foreign Minister: Gulf security vital to regional stability

The energy transition echoes the Bronze Age too.

Iron, local and abundant, replaced bronze, which depended on distant tin. For Gulf producers, the shift from hydrocarbons is a long-term revenue challenge and a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

For mineral-rich OIC members in Africa and Central Asia, it is a chance to process at home rather than to export raw ore. For energy importers such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt, renewables offer a way to protect scarce foreign reserves.

Priorities

What should we do? I would commend five priorities to policymakers, investors and business leaders.

First, diversify deliberately: exports, suppliers, markets and currencies. No single partner should be a single point of failure.

Second, build the granaries. Strategic reserves of food, water, energy and foreign exchange are essential to prepare for the future.

Third, plan for combined shocks. Stress-test against drought, conflict, price surges and capital flight arriving together, not one at a time.

Fourth, deepen trade and investment among OIC members, which remain modest relative to our combined size. Islamic finance, built on real assets and shared risk, is a natural tool. Sukuk can fund infrastructure and food security. Takaful (Sharia-compliant insurance) can protect farmers against climate shocks. Waqf (Islamic charitable endowments) can be revived to finance schools and hospitals.

Fifth, invest in people and keep faith with every partner. Education, skills and healthcare for our young populations are the best insurance against instability. And trust is infrastructure. The Bronze Age network held while kings kept faith with one another.

Historian Ibn Khaldun taught that societies endure through asabiyyah, a shared sense of purpose and solidarity, and decline when leaders grow distant.

The Bronze Age palaces fell partly because that bond had broken. The values of trust and justice are not abstractions. They are the final defence when every other system is under strain.

The Bronze Age kings could not see what was coming. We can. For much of the Gulf, these are still years of relative plenty. That is our great advantage, and our great responsibility.

Dato Paduka Iqbal Khan is the founding chief executive of Fajr Capital and was previously the founding chief executive of HSBC Amanah