Relationship between inequality , poverty and diversity

 

Relationship between inequality , poverty and diversity

 

Introduction

Inequality

Inequality refers to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and wealth within a society. It can manifest in various forms, such as income inequality, educational disparities, or uneven access to healthcare. Inequality often leads to social and economic disadvantages for certain groups or individuals, limiting their chances of upward mobility and creating a cycle of poverty. Inequality, is by definition a relative concept. Inequality is concerned with summarizing the unevenness in the distribution of resources and opportunities among individuals, among groups in a population or among countries.

Poverty

Poverty, on the other hand, is generally understood as a state of deprivation or lack of material resources necessary for a decent standard of living. It is closely related to inequality because unequal distributions of resources can result in higher levels of poverty. Marginalized or disadvantaged groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, women, or people with disabilities, are often disproportionately affected by poverty due to systemic discrimination and limited access to opportunities.

Diversity refers to the presence of a variety of different social and cultural groups within a society. Diversity encompasses differences in race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of identity. It is important to recognize that diversity can exist within different socioeconomic strata, including both privileged and marginalized groups.

Analysis

The relationship between inequality, poverty, and diversity is complex and multifaceted. However, there are a number of ways in which these three concepts intersect.

·                                 Inequality can lead to poverty. When resources are distributed unevenly, those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder are more likely to experience poverty. This is because they have less access to opportunities, such as education and healthcare, which can help them escape poverty.

·                                 Poverty can lead to social exclusion. When people are poor, they are often excluded from mainstream society. This can be due to a number of factors, such as their lack of resources, their social status, or their cultural background. Social exclusion can make it difficult for people to escape poverty, as it limits their access to opportunities and resources.

·                                 Diversity can exacerbate inequality. When different groups of people have different levels of access to resources, this can lead to inequality. For example, if one group of people is disproportionately poor, this can create a situation where they are excluded from opportunities and resources. This can further perpetuate inequality and poverty.

 

Studies find that ethnic and linguistic fractionalization contributes to poverty levels. good economic policies alone are not necessarily sufficient to reduce poverty and promote growth.

 

Ethnic diversity plays a significant role, and therefore needs to be considered when formulating policies to reduce poverty the central point is that, it is impossible to achieve the goals of sustainable development if cultural imbalance that exacerbate inequality is ignored. Social scientists have suggested that cultural diversity in a nation leads to societal instability. However, societal instability may be affected not only by within-nation or α diversity, but also diversity between a nation and its neighbours or β diversity. It is also necessary to distinguish different domains of diversity, namely linguistic, ethnic and religious, and to distinguish between the direct effects of diversity on societal instability, and effects that are mediated by economic conditions.

 

 

 

 

The above table does suggest that inequality ay well be the cause of increased poverty in a society institutively this appears to be a valid hypotheses, the above Table if restricted to first 7 or all 10(r² 0.656) entries would support this statement but the whole available data for more than 130 or more nation states would not result in such a clear cut conclusion 

In the roughly three decades leading up to the most recent recession, looking at the officially measured poverty rate, educational upgrading and overall income growth were the two biggest poverty-reducing factors, while income inequality was the largest poverty-increasing factor. Relative to these factors, the racial composition of the U.S. population over this period (the growth of nonwhite populations with higher likelihoods of poverty) and changes in family structure (the growth of single mother households) have contributed much less to poverty, particularly in recent years.

 

The figure below plots the impact of these economic and demographic factors on the official poverty rate from 1979 to 2007. The impact of income inequality and income growth were quantitatively large, but in the opposite directions.

 

 

 Had income growth been equally distributed, which in this analysis means that all families’ incomes would have grown at the pace of the average, the poverty rate would have been 5.5 points lower, essentially, 44 percent lower than what it was. 

This rise in inequality, in turn, has been dominated by inequality of pre-tax, pre-transfer, market incomes. This means that making real progress on pushing the poverty rate down going forward would be helped enormously by checking or even reversing this growth in market income inequality. In concrete terms, this means we need wages to go up for those at the bottom and middle of the income distribution.

Conclusions

 

Within-nation linguistic diversity is associated with reduced economic performance, which, in turn, increases societal instability. Nations which differ linguistically from their neighbors are also less stable. However, religious diversity between neighboring nations has the opposite effect, decreasing societal instability. income inequality, a topic that has long been a matter of concern among economists, sociologists, and policy makers. A large body of literature can be found on the causes and effects of income inequality in human societies. Researchers have examined a number of factors - both internal such as education (xxx), economic policy of the government (Picketty 2013), political environment (Mullen, 2013), trade policy (Winters, McCulloch and McKay, 2004) as well as external such as colonization (Charles-Coll, 2013) , globalization (Meschi and Vivarelli, 2007; Ravallion, 2004; Kentor, 2001), technology (Jaumotte, Lull and Papageorgiou, 2008), etc., to explain the causes of income inequality in the role of culture in income inequality is that culture plays an important role by affecting government policies on taxation and spending, trade policies, and economic philosophy that would affect income inequality. 

However, diversity can also be a force for good in addressing inequality and poverty. When different groups of people work together, they can pool their resources and knowledge to create solutions that benefit everyone. For example, a diverse group of people may be able to come up with new ideas for how to address poverty, or they may be able to identify and address the root causes of inequality.

·                                 Inequality can be both a cause and a consequence of poverty. In some cases, inequality can lead to poverty, as those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder are less likely to have the resources they need to escape poverty. However, in other cases, poverty can lead to inequality, as those who are poor are less likely to have the same opportunities as those who are not poor.

·                                 Diversity can be a source of strength in addressing inequality and poverty. When different groups of people work together, they can pool their resources and knowledge to create solutions that benefit everyone. This is because different groups of people often have different perspectives and experiences, which can help them to identify and address the root causes of inequality and poverty.

In many cases, inequality and poverty can be exacerbated by a lack of diversity or by the unequal treatment of diverse groups. Discrimination and prejudice can hinder the social and economic advancement of marginalized communities, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and further exacerbating inequality. Inclusive policies and practices that value diversity and promote equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their background, can help address these issues.

 

·                                 There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of inequality, poverty, and diversity. The best approach will vary depending on the specific context. However, it is clear that these three concepts are interconnected, and that they all play a role in shaping the lives of people around the world.

 

Ultimately, the relationship between inequality, poverty, and diversity is complex and multifaceted. However, it is clear that these three concepts are interconnected, and that they all play a role in shaping the lives of people around the world.

Furthermore, addressing inequality and poverty requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account the intersectionality of different forms of disadvantage. Individuals who belong to multiple marginalized groups may face compounded challenges and higher levels of inequality and poverty.

In summary, inequality, poverty, and diversity are interconnected concepts. Inequality can contribute to higher levels of poverty, and both inequality and poverty can disproportionately affect diverse or marginalized groups. Recognizing and addressing these interconnections is crucial for fostering a more equitable and inclusive society.

fossil fuels have likely peaked in their use for producing electricity and are about to enter a period of decline.

 

The global energy transition has reached a pivot point in which fossil fuels have likely peaked in their use for producing electricity and are about to enter a period of decline. This is the idea at the heart of a new report from RMI, a nonprofit that does research and advocacy about the transition. The lead author, energy analyst Kingsmill Bond, makes a case that wind and solar power are going through growth that looks almost exactly like the trend lines for the early stages of transformative products and industries, across technologies and eras, like automobiles and smartphones. The growth begins slowly, with high costs, and shifts into high gear as costs shrink and efficiency rises. The optimism in this outlook is almost jarring in its clarity, and in its contrast with the pessimism I see and feel every day as the threats of climate change become clearer.

The report argues that the fossil fuel demand has peaked in the electricity market in part because the annual growth in global electricity demand—which is about 700 terawatt-hours—is less than the electricity generated in 2022 by newly built power plants that have zero emissions, most of which were wind and solar plants. The report cites forecasts for a continuing increase in wind and solar development that will outpace the growth in electricity demand, a dynamic that will squeeze out the most expensive and dirtiest energy sources.

The use of fossil fuels for electricity shifted in 2018 from a long period of growth to a plateau in which there is no clear trend up or down as measured by the amount of electricity produced. The report says the plateau is likely to continue until about 2025, followed by a long-term decline. The report acknowledges some big obstacles, like political resistance from fossil fuel industries and the challenges of running a grid that uses mostly intermittent resources. But it says the obstacles are surmountable, although I think this portion of the report feels insubstantial at points, with statements like “Innovation has solved most of the barriers to change.” (Bond acknowledged this is fair criticism, and said that the part of the report about obstacles is brief because he and his co-authors are working on a companion report that focuses on this subject in detail.) The report isn’t an academic paper, but plenty of academic researchers have used similar concepts to come to similar conclusions. For example, I wrote last year about a paper from University of Oxford economists and mathematicians about the potential for vast cost savings from a rapid transition to renewable energy.

Kingsmill Bond

Bond, who is based in the United Kingdom, spent decades as an equity analyst and strategist for Deutsche Bank and Citibank, among others. He shifted a few years ago to focus exclusively on economic ramifications of the transition to clean energy, working for the U.K.-based Carbon Tracker Initiative and now RMI. I spoke with him by video from his office, with follow-up via email. Here’s our discussion, edited for length and clarity: A lot of what you’re talking about feels like techno optimism, this idea that we can all relax because progress is going to solve everything. And that’s an idea that gets a lot of criticism, especially from environmental advocates. I hear what you're saying that maybe we are understating the difficulties that we face. There's nothing inevitable about change. We cannot relax for a moment. This is a battle between the forces trying to protect the fossil fuel status quo and those trying to change it. We have to go out there and drive the change we need. Change the policy, deploy the renewable technology, come up with solutions in the hard-to-solve sectors. There is nothing easy about this, but we still need hope and direction. As [Paul] Romer said, it's the difference between complacent optimism and conditional optimism, the difference between a child wanting to be given toys and a child going and building a treehouse. How has the Ukraine war affected the trajectory of the energy transition? So the Ukraine war without any question has sped up change because it increased efficiency and sped up the deployment of renewables. The [International Energy Agency], for example, put out two reports at the end of 2022, and one of them said that after a number of years of slow gains in energy efficiency, efficiency has increased this year to 2 percent, which is exactly what you would expect in the face of a supply shock. And that, of course, is just the beginning. So it's increased the efficiency of our use of energy. And of course, the other thing that it's done is it's massively increased the deployment of renewable energy. So the IEA, for example, increased their renewable energy deployment forecast for the next five years by 30 percent. Meanwhile, solar deployment in 2022 increased by 50 percent to 270 GW, according to [BloombergNEF], and EV sales rose by 60 percent. As so often, war has sped up change. So if I'm Vladimir Putin, this is pretty counterproductive in terms of my long-term global interests. As Talleyrand said, it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake. The situation was similar in the 1970s, when OPEC tried to achieve its own geopolitical aims by cutting off oil supply, and ended up setting the scene for two decades of significantly lower oil prices, which ultimately had very profound consequences, including contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union. This time around, we see a similar story of petrostate overreach leading to a speeding up of change. It’s not an unreasonable framework for us to be thinking about the consequences of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, that it will actually achieve the exact opposite of what he wanted, that is to say, a speeding up of change. Back to the idea of optimism: We live in a world where there's a lot of justified pessimism about climate change. Are you optimistic about the world that our children and grandchildren will be living in? The reason I'm very optimistic is because we can actually see right in front of our noses this pivot point where we go from constantly rising demand for fossil fuels, to a plateau, and then a decline.  Four factors underlie my optimism: learning curves, meaning the cost of renewables gets cheaper every year; exponential growth, meaning renewables get bigger every year; tipping points, because they are happening right now; and feedback loops, which make change happen faster once you get to the tipping point. That means that this is the decade of disruption, where the energy system starts its long process of change. And as the energy system changes, we can fight back against climate change.  One of the other reasons why I’m optimistic is if you look backwards 10 years, it really was incredibly bleak. And all these technologies were much more expensive. But here we are, and what will happen in another 10 years, how much more innovation and deployment can there be? So yeah, I guess that's why I'm relatively optimistic. And I should also say I have two children who share this optimism; they’re going into this field, as engineers to build out this brave new world.

Whitewashing of Modis grave human rights violations will have grave impact upon Pakistan

 

Whitewashing of Modis grave human rights violations will have grave impact upon Pakistan ;

Security concerns: A closer alliance between the US and India may lead to increased cooperation in the military and defense sectors. This could result in a strengthening of India's military capabilities, which may be seen as a threat by Pakistan Deepening U.S.-India security cooperation is heightening Pakistan’s sense of vulnerability in the face of its more powerful Indian rival. Washington is scaling up arms sales and defense technology transfers to New Delhi, and the two are now implementing defense foundational accords that equip the Indian military with better communication and intelligence technologies. Even with the security assistance that Pakistan gets from China, this surge in U.S. military support to India will add to New Delhi’s advantage in conventional military power over Islamabad. This could intensify longstanding worries in Pakistan about the threat posed by India to Pakistan. And that’s not good for a relationship already fraught with fragility and mistrust. Additionally, the boost in Indian military capacities generated by growing U.S.-India security cooperation is another motivation for Pakistan to move closer to China .

 

Minorities; Minorities in India will face even more and brutal action by the Hindu right as the already dire situation has not evoked even a whimper from the Americans    

 

Kashmir dispute: The deepening of ties between the US and India might affect the dynamics of the longstanding Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. If India perceives stronger support from the US, it could adopt a more assertive stance, which may lead to increased tensions and potential escalations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. . It could further exacerbate existing security tensions in the region, particularly in relation to the disputed territory of Kashmir. Already Indians have reverted to the unprovoked firing across LoC and violated the 2011 agreement (resulting in civilian mortalities) during the last few days 9 Kashmiri young men have been martyred in extra judicial killings by the Indian armed forces; Kashmiri are likely to face even more brutal actions by the Occupying Indians

Financial Impacts; India will push US to put Pakistan in the FAFT black list again. also Pakistan’s quest for IMF bail out in 2024 is likely to be responded to by asking concessions upon Nuclear assets etc  and more even flow of funds from the development institutions and the private sector could be affected   

 

Khalistan ;Supporters of Khalistan will also face more brutal illegal actions already three Khalsitani leaders have been killed in extra judicial killings . Australia, Britain and to some extend Canada have started to heed Indian demands for action against Khalistani leaders Australia has now withdrawn permission to Sikhs to conduct a referendum 

Anti- Muslim Cinema, a new trend nurturing under Hindutva Culture by Syed Ali Mujtaba

 

Anti- Muslim Cinema, a new trend nurturing under Hindutva Culture by Syed Ali Mujtaba

In recent years Indian cinema is being fed on the growing trend of anti-Muslim hate movies. The Bollywood film industry is churning out the distorted portrayal of Muslims in the last nine years or so and such plots have matured to their real structure after the BJP government came to power under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.  

Movies made in these years include; The Kashmir Files (2022) Padmavat (2018), Lipstick under My Burkha (2016), Tanhaji (2020), and recently The Kerala Story (2023) Farhana etc. All these movies have an anti-Muslim anti-Islam slant blaming the Indian Muslim community for following a barbaric, oppressive, harsh, uncivilized religion. The goal of such films is to permanently damage the entire social fabric of India.

Bollywood has been using the medium of cinema to attack Indian Muslims for a long time. Such films are serving the designs of the RSS and the BJP with the hidden agenda to give a push to create a Hindu Rashtra where Muslims will become third-class citizens, with limited rights and with limited avenues for recourse.

Earlier Bollywood was known for making movies that promoted Hindu-Muslim brotherhood and communal harmony. They used to be declared tax-free by the government to promote the constitutional values of India. Now the latest trend is to make films that promote hatred and division in society and such films are made tax-free. This is an alarming trend in India making use of cinematic art to villainize the Indian Muslims.

Another purpose of making such movies is to divert the mind of the people from real issues, like soaring unemployment and economic distress, and other such things. The local media plays a big role in the promotion of such movies and in changing the political discourse of the country. The media instead of debating over the economy or other critical issues choose to talk about the newly released anti-Muslim film and make them busy talking about and forgetting the real issues.

During the Karnataka election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi openly promoted the film ‘The Kerala Story’. He told the crowd at a rally in Ballari, Karnataka; “the Kerala Story is based on a terror conspiracy. It shows the ugly truth of terrorism and exposes terrorists' design.” He urged the people to go and watch the “ugly truth.”

After Modi openly promoted the scandalous film, several BJP politicians too came out in support of this film. The Kerala Story was released in BJP-ruled states and declared tax-free.  As a result, this film earned millions demonstrating the popularity of hate-centric films. The same can be said about The Kashmir Files, which minted huge money propagating hate against the Kashmiri Muslims and successfully polarizing Indian society.

In cinema, business formulas are being experimented and the kind of movie that churns much money is presented in different permutations and commutations to make more money. Cinema is a smarter and quicker medium to make money. It’s a medium where with a small investment, a high return is ensured. Examples are Kashmir File and the Kerala story. 

 The problem with the anti-Muslim film is that they cherry-pick incidents and don’t see it from a larger historical perspective. These films serve the purpose of the mental manipulation of the audience’s understanding of history and give a push to the ruling party’s majoritarian political agenda. In the case of Kashmir Files, the film blamed Kashmiri Muslims for it, while they had actually protected the minority Hindus. In the Kerala story, it is told that 32,000 Hindu women were converted to Islam and sent to Iraq and Syria to serve the jihadis fighting there. The alleged allegation is only 3 women were found to be involved in such activity, among them two were Muslims and one Hindu converted to Islam.  

It looks obvious that the Indian film industry is walking in the footsteps of Nazi Germany to prevaricate, control, and influence a specific group of audiences to achieve political goals.  The “big lie” strategy is used to brainwash the Hindu masses to convince them to develop apathy towards the Muslims loathing them for all the ills of the country.

Another alarming trend is the roles of the members of the censor board who allow hate Muslim movies to fit enough to get screening certificates. The members of the censor board are hand-picked by the government and are loyal to the ideology of the ruling party. They give certificates of screening to such films ignoring their consequences on society. 

Earlier, the censor board did not allow such communally charged films to be screened at all. But now under the BJP rule, such kinds of movies are allowed to be screened even though they are promoting enmities against the communities in the country. 

This is a generational level of destruction that is happening in India through the medium of hate films being churned out by Bollywood. This is polarizing Indian society to the level which is beyond redemption. These movies are very carefully crafted, scene by scene, with the intent that whoever watches will follow the propagator's side of the story. The audience gulps such pulp fiction accepting such ideas as truth and eventually becoming the characters of the movie itself.

The kind of hatred, the kind of maliciousness, and the kind of visceral heat generated by these movies are nothing but simply fissures in the country can be called an anti national activity. These films are widening the gap between communal spot lines, creating an atmosphere of hatred in Indian society. Indian citizens are watching this facet of the Indian cinema’s changing colors but no one dares to raise a voice of protest against such a dangerous trend.  This is the harsh reality of contemporary India.

 

US BID TO CONVINCE ALLIES TO NORMALIZE TIES WITH ISRAEL IS FLOUNDERING By Abdul Rahman

 

US BID TO CONVINCE ALLIES TO NORMALIZE TIES WITH ISRAEL IS FLOUNDERING

By Abdul Rahman,  

June 10, 2023

 

Despite Repeated High-Level Visits, US Officials Have So Far Failed To Convince The Saudis To Normalize Relations With Israel.

The recent visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also confirms speculation that Gulf Cooperation Council countries are striving for more autonomy.

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded his three-day visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, June 8. He was the second top US official to visit the kingdom in less than a month, after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. His visit was widely seen as a desperate attempt by the Joe Biden administration to hold on to its “closest ally” in the West Asian region.  

 

Before Blinken started his tour, he had stated that normalization of Saudi-Israel relations was one of the top priorities of his government. However, reports indicate that Blinken not only failed to get any assurance from the Saudis on that front, but had to concede some crucial ground on significant regional issues.

 

During his tour, Blinken met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on June 6, attended a Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers’ meet in Riyadh on June 7, and a meeting of a so-called Global Coalition to defeat ISIS on June 8. 

 

Normalization with Israel is stuck?

Hours before he traveled to Saudi Arabia, Blinken addressed a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, claiming that the Biden administration “has a real national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.” He also noted that there are no real prospects of a two-state solution in the near future and that his government will not push for it. 

 

On June 8, before leaving Saudi Arabia, Blinken addressed a press conference jointly with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Riyadh, where he reiterated his government’s resolve to work for Israel-Saudi normalization. However, Blinken was contradicted by Faisal bin Farhan who pointed out that “normalization of ties with Israel will have limited benefit without a pathway to peace for the Palestinians.” 

 

Earlier, Blinken ended up committing to work for the resolution of the conflict in Palestine and the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders in a joint statement issued a day after his meeting with the GCC foreign ministers.

 

The statement, without naming Israel, underlined “the need to refrain from all unilateral measures that undermine a two-state solution and escalate tensions, to preserve the historic status quo in Jerusalem’s holy sites.”

 

Two of the GCC members, Bahrain and the UAE, have already “normalized” their relations with Israel under the so-called Abraham accords mediated by the US. 

 

Autonomous foreign policy

The statement indicated that the US may have conceded crucial geopolitical ground on other issues as well. For example, while it raised the issue of “freedom of navigation and maritime security in the region,” hinting at alleged Iranian threats, it welcomed the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in a reversal of the US’ earlier cautious tone.

 

The statement also supported the ongoing peace efforts in Yemen and expressed the need for an inclusive intra-Yemeni political process. This is despite the fact that the Biden administration has maintained that the Houthis are Iranian allies and the war in Yemen is a proxy war. Successive US governments since Barack Obama have provided billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners to be used against the civilian population in Yemen. 

 

In another significant development, the US seems to have toned down its objections to Arab countries’ normalizing their relations with Syria. The joint statement expressed support for the Arab countries’ “efforts to resolve the [Syrian] crisis in a step-for-step manner.” The statement reiterated that peace in the country should be on the basis of the UN resolution 2254 (2015) and expressed commitments to Syria’s unity and sovereignty.

 

This is despite some GCC countries, such as Qatar and Kuwait—close allies of the US — expressing their dissent at the normalization with Syria. The US had earlier stated that the US does not “support normalization with Damascus” or “others normalizing this.” 

 

The outcome of Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia is similar to the outcome of President Joe Biden’s visit to the Kingdom last year when he failed to convince MBS to increase oil production to ease global prices. It fits into growing speculations about the GCC becoming more autonomous and no longer toeing the US line.

Islam has become less rational since its medieval Golden Age. What went wrong?

 

Islam has become less rational since its medieval Golden Age. What went wrong?

 

There is no central doctrinal authority in Islam. The result is a wide range of Islamic thought. The rise of conservative revivalist movements, such as Salafism, can be attributed to the disillusionment caused by the decline of the Islamic world and the failure of modernization efforts. These movements seek to return Islam to its perceived roots and have gained popularity among those seeking social reform and religious renewal. Stupendous intellectual resources already exist in Islam, as does the tradition of debate. These are the ingredients that can help reconcile Islam to the modern world.

 

In 833 AD, the Abbasid Caliph, al-Mamun, was at the height of his power. He ruled a vast empire, and a clear majority of the world’s Muslims considered him the leader of the faithful. However, there was a problem. While he enjoyed considerable influence on questions of religious law and doctrine, the highest human authority in Islam wasn’t the caliph but an amorphous group of respected scholars, the ulema, who were supposed to reach a consensus on contentious issues.

 

Membership of the ulema wasn’t by official appointment, but by something approaching popular acclamation. And, on some seminal matters, consensus proved impossible. For example, rationalist theologians, the Mutazilites, believed humans have free will. Ranged against them were some of the experts on Sharia law, who insisted that God had determined all things, including who was destined for hell. This meant debates could continue without agreement for centuries.

Al-Mamun wasn’t happy about this. He wanted to enforce his right to adjudicate on religious controversies but instead found himself having to negotiate with the various factions. It was time to press the issue. As it happened, he enjoyed the support of the Mutazilites and so picked one question upon which they agreed against the majority of the ulema: Is the Koran eternal, or was it created by God?

 

Most Muslims said that the Arabic text of the holy book had always existed in the mind of the deity. For all eternity, he knew exactly what the political situation in 7th century Arabia was going to be and had the Koran ready for dictation to the prophet Muhammad. This strongly implied that history was determined in advance. The Mutazilites disagreed. They said that although God had composed the Koran, it had not always existed. They further argued that determinism implied humans have no choice about whether to sin and no chance to earn redemption, which conflicted with God’s mercy.

 

Islamic Inquisition

Mercy wasn’t at the forefront of al-Mamun’s mind when he sought to impose his will on the ulema. He issued a proclamation that the Koran was created and insisted everyone consent to it. The most distinguished religious and legal scholars were hauled in for questioning. Those who refused to accept the caliph’s position were tortured and imprisoned until they recanted. The episode is called the mihna, meaning “trial” or “ordeal” in Arabic but often translated as “inquisition.” In this case, the inquisitors were on the side of rationalism and their victims were religious conservatives refusing to disown traditional dogma. Resistance to the caliph was led by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a venerable expert on Sharia law, whose day job was running a bakery.

  

Al-Mamun died on campaign within months of instituting the mihna, so it was left to his successors to enforce his ordinance. Many of the ulema backed down, but not ibn Hanbal. Despite being beaten until he passed out and interrogated by the caliph in person, he refused to admit the Koran is created. Too influential to be ignored and too stubborn to recant, ibn Hanbal eventually forced the caliphs to accept defeat. After about 15 years, they wound down the mihna. There would never be a central doctrinal authority in Islam.

 

No central authority

As for ibn Hanbal, he is recognized as the founder of one of the four main schools of Sunni jurisprudence. Sharia law is based on the Koran (which doesn’t actually contain very much legal material) and the hadiths — that is, sayings of the prophet Muhammad and his companions. Each hadith is a snippet of a conversation, often involving Muhammad responding to a query from one of his followers. If the Prophet said it, it’s authoritative and enjoys the force of law. The trouble was, by ibn Hanbal’s time, fake hadiths had been proliferating as they were invented to support various agendas. He took it upon himself to collate the authentic hadiths, supporting their authority by showing how they had been passed down to his own day.

 

Ibn Hanbal was not the only collector of hadiths. There are at least six canonical collections, not to mention several thousand sayings dismissed as poorly authenticated. Sharia is far from being a single edifice. Any recognized scholar can issue an opinion, or fatwa, and whether any other scholar concurs is up to him. Today, you can seek a fatwa to address a particular concern over the internet. And if you don’t like the result, you can ask someone else. Consensus remains elusive, although Muslims do now agree the Koran is uncreated.

A wide variety of Islamic thought

It’s the sheer variety of Islamic thought that takes many Westerners by surprise. Without a Muslim version of the pope to delineate heresy from orthodoxy, the ulema have been left to argue it out among themselves. Sometimes rulers would get involved and lend their authority to favored scholars. But even then, dissenters could simply move to a more favorable jurisdiction. Indeed, the biographies of famous thinkers like Avicenna and al-Ghazali are full of peregrinations from one part of the Muslim world to another, as they sought patronage or just to be left alone.

 

The Shia, who dominate in Iran, originally split from mainline Islam over the question of who was the rightful caliph. But in time, they developed their own theological and legal heritage, which has generally bent more toward rationalism than their Sunni equivalents. The Shia have themselves suffered from schism: most significantly, the Ismaili sect that enjoyed its greatest success under the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt. Meanwhile, the mystical practices of Sufism have permeated all branches of Islam. Sufism can’t be characterized as either theologically conservative or liberal since the Sufi masters wended their own way through the doctrinal morass, with some ending up very far from the mainstream.

 

Islam has also absorbed outside influences. The translation movement, whereby a huge stock of Persian, Sanskrit, and Greek writing was rendered in Arabic under the Abbasid caliphate, brought governance, science, and medicine to a Muslim audience. All three subjects thrived as they were turned to issues like administration, the calendar, and good health. Today, medieval Muslim mathematicians and natural philosophers are rightfully celebrated, even if some exaggerations about their achievements have crept into the record. More controversially, pseudoscience like astrology was perennially popular. One caliph used a crack squad of astrologers to determine the most auspicious time to lay the foundation stone of his new capital of Baghdad. Alchemy was especially welcomed by Shia savants, who generated a vast corpus of esoteric texts under the name of a quasi-mythical figure called Jabir.

 

Foreign science and philosophy

Areas of knowledge that had originated outside the Islamic world were called the “foreign sciences.” This was not necessarily detrimental to their position in society even if they had to fight for their corner in the bazaar of ideas. For instance, the Brethren of Purity were a 10th-century sect from Basra, who blended Greek science with Islamic mysticism to create a unique ideology. While they gathered quite a following (despite no one knowing who they actually were), orthodox leaders tried unsuccessfully to suppress their ideas.

 

Philosophy, called falsafa in Arabic, built on the thought of Greek sages, especially Aristotle, whose work had been translated under the Abbasids. Its greatest exponent was Avicenna, the medieval Persian polymath whose achievements laid the foundation for almost all subsequent Muslim philosophy. Within Islam itself, falsafa had to jostle with theology and law for academic kudos. (Some Arab thinkers celebrated in the West, such as Averroes, were much less influential among Muslims.)

 

While it is true that falsafa and foreign sciences like astronomy were opposed by traditionalists, the critique misses the point: Pretty much every Muslim thinker aroused opposition from other scholars somewhere. Throwing fatwas at opponents was part and parcel of debate. Nor should we forget that, for centuries after the Islamic conquests, the majority of the people ruled by the caliphs were not Muslims at all. Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians may have been second-class citizens, but that did not put a stop to their intellectual life.

 

Yet today, despite the range of Islamic thought, few would deny that Muslim countries are generally more socially and religiously conservative than the West — a reversal of the position in the Middle Ages. What happened?

 

An attack on rationality

A superficial and flippant answer might be “nothing much.” The big changes took place in the West rather than the East, which stayed much the same. But there is more to it than that.

The failure of the mihna meant that caliphs would never enjoy the dogmatic authority of medieval popes. But it was also a humiliation for the Mutazilite rationalists, whose influence deteriorated over the following decades. Meanwhile, the triumphant followers of ibn Hanbal and other scholars pushed their twin agendas of determinism and Koranic literalism. In place of the disgraced Mutazilites, new Ashari and Maturidi schools of theology, each named after their 10th-century founders, came to represent Sunni orthodoxy. While the Maturidis, in particular, were sympathetic toward falsafa, both schools reflected a significant move away from the rationalism of their Mutazilite predecessors. Thus, as consensus among the ulema coalesced slowly over the centuries, it inclined toward conservatism. In any case, traditionalists maintained their hold over Muslim laypeople, who never showed much interest in highfalutin speculative divinity.

 

By far, the most renowned of the Ashari theologians is al-Ghazali. In 1095, he was a confidant of sultans and viziers but then left his well-paid job as a teacher in Baghdad, swearing that he would never again be beholden to the state. Shortly afterward, he published a trenchant attack on falsafa, The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In this book, he took 20 theses, which followers of the philosopher Avicenna thought were proven, and showed where their reasoning was faulty. It was not that al-Ghazali disagreed with all the theses, although he considered most of them wrong and some to be outright heresy. Rather, he sought to puncture the pretensions of those thinkers who thought that they could use reason to discover absolute truth. Such certainty, he maintained, was only available through divine revelation.

Al-Ghazali has been blamed for diverting Islamic thought toward mysticism and religious obscurantism. In truth, he is hard to pigeonhole. Western scholars in the Middle Ages thought he was a devoted follower of Avicenna because a summary of the latter’s thought circulated under the name of Algazel. In the Muslim world, his most influential work is the enormous Revival of the Religious Sciences, a complete guide to Muslim ethics and ritual intended to integrate Sufi practice with Sunni belief. Not everyone was impressed. In a fine example of the tensions among different parts of the ulema, the authorities in Cordoba, Spain, had the book burnt in the courtyard of the city’s mosque in 1109.

While al-Ghazali’s reputation as the destroyer of philosophy in the Muslim world is unfair, there is little doubt that rationalism remained a minority pursuit. Al-Ghazali himself was hardly the most conservative of the medieval ulema. The 14th-century polemicist ibn Taymiyyah made him look like a dripping wet liberal. Ibn Taymiyyah railed against Sufism, philosophy, and any kind of religious novelty (by which he meant something that was less than 600 years old). From his base in Damascus, he preached that the only source of religious authority was the Koran, together with the genuine hadiths. His cantankerous attacks on his contemporaries got him into endless trouble. He was regularly thrown into prison and accused of violating the authority of the ulema. And yet, today, his trenchant dogma is extremely influential among traditionalists.

 

Nostalgia meets reality

The term ibn Taymiyyah used for the earliest Muslims who composed the hadiths was “the pious predecessors,” or al-salaf al-salah in Arabic, so his modern admirers are called Salafists. Salafism seeks to return Islam to its roots, inspired by nostalgia for an imaginary past that even Muslim history makes clear never existed.

 

An early Salafist movement was Wahhabism, founded during the 18th century as a joint venture between the cleric Abd al-Wahhab and the Arabian warlord Muhammad bin Saud. Reacting against the decadence of the Ottoman Empire, they carved an emirate out of the desert that survives to this day as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Elsewhere, Salafi principles have been adopted by a broad range of modern Islamist groups, whether or not they consider themselves formally affiliated with that movement.

 

Since Islam is such a broad church, why is it that these conservative revivalists have become so successful? To find the answer, we need to remember that until the 18th century, a Muslim would have been justified in thinking that Islam was ordained by God to convert the whole world. Despite local setbacks, such as the reconquest of Spain by Christians, Islam continued to grow strongly in sub-Saharan Africa and India, as well as Central and Southeast Asia.

 

However, by the 1800s, it was impossible to maintain the dream of superiority. In July 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt. The climactic Battle of the Pyramids lasted barely an hour and ended with the cream of the Egyptian cavalry decimated to the cost of about 40 French lives. In India, the British encroached upon and finally annexed the once mighty Mughal Empire, while Persia had to acquiesce to subjugation by one European power to protect it from the others. It must have been difficult for the faithful to process the enormity of these sudden reversals.

Despots and stability, not democracy and liberalism

Nineteenth-century Muslim modernists, such as India’s Syed Ahmad Khan and Egypt’s Muhammad Abduh, advocated the imitation of the West, arguing that since Islam is a religion of reason it is fully compatible with the Enlightenment. However, modernization has been hampered by the fact that much of the Muslim world is ruled by despots who are only interested in reform to the extent that it shores up their own power. Science was one thing, liberalism quite another. In the 20th century, as Europe continued to accelerate away, political change was suppressed in places like Egypt and Iran.

 

 

While there are few democratic institutions in the Islamic world, we have seen that authority within Islam itself is broadly spread among those ulema who have acquired a certain level of prestige among their peers and the people. The failure of modernism (as evidenced most recently by the collapse of the so-called Arab Spring) has meant religion has been the main outlet for protest. Politicized Islam pursues the twin goals of social reform and religious renewal. The most prominent example is the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by the Egyptian Hassan al-Banna. The Brotherhood combines a demand for social justice with a fundamentalist theology. It was clear threat to Egypt’s secular rulers, who tried suppress it, only to make it more radical. Al-Banna was murdered by the secret police at age 42, while its leading intellectual, Sayyid Qutb, was hanged by the regime.

Preoccupied with the struggle against Nazism and then Communism, the West valued stability over democracy in the Muslim world, leading it to support despotic regimes such as the military juntas in Egypt and the Wahhabist House of Saud. That said, where Western power has been brought to bear to impose democracy, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, the results have been disappointing.

 

Modernization is possible

So, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the solutions to the Muslim world’s problems will have to come from within. Glib assertions that Islam needs a Reformation are misguided, not least because Salafism itself is analogous to the return to the Bible and early Church Fathers advocated by the first Protestants. And the 17th-century European wars of religion are not an example anyone would like to see followed.

 

Instead, advocates for reform need to have patience. Religious consensus, developed over the centuries, has never been in the gift of rulers like Caliph al-Mamun. It can only change gradually and has always had to accommodate the views of common folk. This means that until ordinary people living in Muslim countries feel their lives are being improved by modernity, they are likely to remain suspicious of liberalism. More democracy will probably mean more Islamists in power.

 

Luckily, stupendous intellectual resources already exist in Islam, as does the tradition of debate. These are the ingredients that can help reconcile Islam to the modern world. It’s a process that has been going on quietly for many years. But it will take time to come to fruition.

 

 

 https://bigthink.com/the-past/islam-rationality-modernity/