And Another Thing…

The trouble with the discovery that a culture is that society’s survival mechanism is that it not only explains many events, it makes it embarrassingly simply to decide which are going to be the winners and which the losers. If much of sub-Saharan Africa does not change its culture, then it will continue to sink back until it is a morass of failed states. It can also, provocative though this may seem, be argued that Islam is likely to fade, perhaps becoming a religion as mild as the Church of England.

It is a religion that carries the ideas and prejudices of the nomadic societies amongst whom Muhammad lived and had to convert. His key message was monotheism (they were polytheists up to then) and even if he had given it the least consideration, it would have been fatal to his mission to argue that on top of this fundamental change in their beliefs, they would also have to alter their culture.

As a result, Islam incorporated the characteristics of nomads everywhere; the unequivocal loyalty to an extended family, male status evidenced by the number of movable assets - wives, children, livestock - and polygamy and the bride price. More to the point, it also built on the nomad's antagonism for the (relatively) wealthy townsmen - mainly Jewish at the time - who had fixed property and who controlled the money market. Muhammad wanted to build a financial system independent of them that did not have the time-linked uncertainties that so distressed his nomads in their dealings with the towns. This ideal has finally been achieved on the back of the oil wealth passing through the banks of Muslim countries, but it is manifestly not a natural arrangement. For example it sees interest as unearned income, making the rich get richer and the poor poorer, and elaborate arrangements have been created to permit Islamic banking to operate in an interest-free environment.

Nomadic societies are generally patriarchal, and new aspirants to senior positions in them are not welcomed by the establishment. In a capitalist community jealousy can be a useful emotion, driving those who perceive themselves to be under-rewarded to furious strivings upwards. However, in societies where tall poppies get cut down rather than encouraged, it can be deadly. Islam seems particularly vulnerable to this outlook. The distortions of Islamic finance depend upon the flow of oil, which will eventually cease. When that happens the godless modern environment of the capitalist states will become more attractive to the clever younger members of the religion, who will begin to see it as peripheral to their strivings. Perhaps, as with many of Europe’s churches, we shall then see mosques being turned into building sites.