Is Medieval North Africa underrated in World History?

Having given some more thought to this, it would seem wise to question why the cities in North Africa always featured as being among the most populous in medieval times. Firstly, they were well buffered against most attacks. They had little to fear from enemies in the east, while their Christian foes were normally kept too occupied in Spain to pose much of a threat to them. Consequently, the cities would not have endured sack and their population would remain more stable and be encouraged to grow. This was also the case with Constantinople apart from two occasions, while I don't recall Cairo being sacked during this period. The presence of buffers would have helped North African cities develop.

These cities were much more dependent upon trade and piracy, as I mentioned. Nations more dependent on the sea can be expected to form into larger cities rather than spreading out to practice intensive agriculture. Nations dependent on the sea such as Venice and Genoa had a particularly urban focus as to how their society was organised. Perhaps the cities of North Africa were likewise organised.

North Africa certainly acted as a route via which the West gained access to technology from the East. Byzantium enjoyed much friendlier relations with the Western Islamic world than the Eastern one on their doorstep, although contact between Western Islamic civilisation and Byzantium was obviously a good deal more sporadic. But when Western Christendom did intercept technology from the east it was often in Spain that it was found. North Africa played a role in transmitting technology and intellectual works to Muslim Spain, but it was in the mixed and competitive environment of Iberia itself that the West actually encountered and made use of such resources. They did not directly gain it from North Africa anymore than they directly had access to it from Egypt. North Africa was a stepping stone of knowledge from east to west. Intellectually they were a source for transmission of information rather than production of it, though certainly they did make intellectual contributions.

I see North Africa as an area made rich from trade and piracy, whose cities enjoyed peace thanks to the presence of friendly buffers in Spain and the Sahara and who would have had about the same intellectual exposure as Spain. North Africa seems to have enjoyed the safety, wealth and cultural exposure needed to grow large cities, but even in its own time was only capable of quite limited political and military power.

A few points to be made:

Ikki: I can see what you're saying about the cities of the Maghreb perhaps being inflated at the expesne of the state. I think that the comparison with France is very unfair though, because France has much larger swaths of good agricultural land than the Maghreb. Also, France in medieval times was the largest state by far in terms of population. At the same time that France had 14 million people, England had about 3 million. A huge country like Poland had only about 2.5 million around 1200.
Also, Northern Europe was definitely not much richer than the muslim world. If you read Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism, you'll see that for all the impressive trade of the Hanseatic league or the Flemish cities, it was only a small fraction of the trade done by Italian cities like Venice, Genoa, Amalfi and Pisa. These cities did most of their trade with the muslim world, so the muslim world was very rich. As late as the 16th century, Portuguese merchants estimated that the trade in the Indian Ocean was many times larger than the trade done by Europeans. Northern Europe may have gotten more and more rich, but it only surpassed the Muslim world after the 16th century.  Finally, there were a lot of other medium size cities in the Maghreb that were larger than or equivalent with their European counterparts. Besides Fez and Marrakech, there was Tangier, Tlemcen, Algiers, Oran, Rabat, Tunis, Meknes... It took the North African region a long time to fall behind Europe. Just look at the disaster the Portuguese suffered in 1580 in Morocco.

Constantine: While North Africa was the breadbasket of Rome, it was specifically the region around Carthage (Tunisia) that was so, Fez and Marrakech are in Morocco, which was marginal in Roman times. Even so, you're right to point out that the agriculture basis was lacking. These cities had gotten large and rich by trade; they probably couldn't have fed their population without trade. Thus, they deserve a comparison with cities with a poor agricultural base but a strong commercial role such as Genoa, Amalfi, Lubeck or Venice. They were larger than these respective cities; perhaps because they also served as centers of large empires. But it still brings up the point that these were important centers.

My whole initial post about the large size of urban centers during that period, is that in the pre-industrial world, at least according to economic historians, a large city size is indicative of either intense commercial activity and/or the presence of a strong centralized state. This would indicate that either the North African cities were wealthier than we normally think of them, or that they were the centers of strong centralized states. Constantine, in your post, you say that: "We rate civilisations as much for the cultural advances, military might, exploration and wealth". The large city size would indicate wealth and/or military might(resulting from a strong state). You want exploration? The greatest explorer of the medieval era, Ibn Battuta, was from Tangier. If you look on a map, you'll actually find that the Almoravid and Almohad empires were very large... Anyway, in some ways I would say that Constantine  and Ikki's posts are representative of North Africa's reputation among historians and would-be historians, and in fact they strengthen my point, that perhaps North Africa's role in history may have gone unrecognized.

I would say that North Africa together with Muslim Spain constituted in medieval times a second pole of islamic civilization, rival with the one centered on Cairo and Baghdad. I think it is the very limited clout of the Maghreb countries in the world today, and the relative unappreciation of Spain for its muslim period, that makes this pole of civlization be somewhat underrated.

Since I am really NOT an expert on medieval European history, I may be showing total ignorance here. If I do, please kindly explain things to me and feel free to correct me.

I am quite skeptical about the statement about France having Paris and many other cities of medium size whereas the North African empires only having one important city. I think for centuries (and to a certain extent even in modern France), Paris was France's alpha-city. Its dominance in French politics, culture, economy, and society was so complete that, while it may not or should not be likened to the "microefalia" of the Islam states, it was the very centre of the French civilization. I think if one compares the population of Paris with those of other French cities, one might be able to find the same disproportionate dominance of one alpha city at the expense of others that was in existence in the North African empires.

But I am not fundamentally arguing against Ikki's point. Unquestionably. the French kingdom appeared to be much stronger and wealthier than the North African empires whose populations were much smaller and whose economic bases appeared to be much weaker. However, the problems of "small population" and "weak economic base" were not unique to these North African empires. The Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark had the same problem of a small population and a weak economy, but none of them could boast having cities that remotely resembled Fez and Marrakech in terms of population and maybe even wealth and prosperity. 

So the negligence of the importance of these North African cities in the "Medieval Central World System" may indeed be some sort of historical oversight as a result of Eurocentrism.   

While reading through an article posted in reference to the "World System Theory" topic, in the Intellectual Discussion section, I noticed something interesting. As you can see from the quote below, the authors discuss the sizes of the largest cities in what they call the "Central World System". For the period that I mean to discuss (1100-1500), the "Central World System" would comprise Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. Please note that the Far East and Indian cities are not included in these statistics for this period.

What I was surprised to notice is the fact that North African cities such as Fez and Marrakech consistently figure among the top 5 cities of the Central World System between 1100-1500. The size of cities is indicative of a strong economic activity or/and a strong central authority. In any case, relatively very large cities are a sign of a major center of civilization. So, the presence of not one but 2 North African cities in the top 5 for this period would mean that North Africa was one of the most important centres of civilization in the world.

Perhaps it is my impression, but most of the discussion on this forum for that period has been focused on the Middle East, on Byzantium and Western Europe (and the Far East). I haven't seen much discussion on North Africa on this forum, which for conversations between would-be historians, would seem to me indicative that North Africa is very much underrated during the period 1100-1500. I haven't seem much importance placed on the region in world history books either.

Why do you think this is?

http://www.irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows5/irows5.htm