Demosophia

Has Islam Had Its Last Cromwell?

In a new TCS article Edward Feser speculates that what Islam needs is not a Martin Luther, but a Pope. Well, he's partly right. Islam needs to put a cap on its unending Reformation. That's part of the story. It may need an ecumenical hierarchy, such as the one that now exists in Iran, in order to set that up. But Islam also needs its Oliver Protector. One of the problems with the Islamic world is that accounts were never settled. But the other is that their religious history evolved to a point where martyrdom was their only option, while that's where ours began. It's not that simple, of course. Nothing is that tidy.

The fact of the matter is that those aspects of Islam that seem to put it unalterably at odds with the modern world are, for the most part, precisely those that it shares in common with Protestantism; and that those features of modern Western civilization most crucial to the maintenance of liberty and scientific reason owe far more to the Catholic Church than they do to Luther and Calvin.

It might have been a good idea for Feser to temper his philosophical bent by adopting a little crass empiricism, as did the remarkable social scientist Max Weber. The fact is that the Protestant nations that adopted an outlook Weber called "worldly asceticism" performed far better, economically, than those that remained under the control of more "traditional" outlooks. Not only that, but even within nations Protestant enclaves did better than Catholic enclaves. What's important is the legitimation of behavior in a society, a concept that Hayek never really grasped, and that Dr. Feser ought to have at least considered.

Although Hayek was a brilliant economist, he was a lousy sociologist. For instance, he insisted on attributing the "rule of law" to a phenomenon he called "emergence," which is a bit like believing that babies come from storks. The barons who established the rule of law and the common law in England did so for very practical reasons, and its origins predated the main thrust of the Reformation by at least four centuries. The rule of law didn't emerge from some black box. People planned it, very deliberately. And while England was under a Pope at the time, the primary difference in England was that the Norman Conquest led to the creation of the "Doomsday Book," which was a massive accounting exercise designed so that the Normans wouldn't inadvertently miss any treasure with their suction hoses. It was, in other words, the determination to make precise accounts, ironically to secure war booty, that led to the realization that feuds, and therefore feudalism, cost more than they were worth. The Pope had nothing to do with it. Nor did Calvin or John Locke, for that matter. Now, it did happen in a Roman Catholic world, whereas nothing like it happened under Eastern Orthodoxy. And in that sense you can identify a dividing line between reasonably prosperous Western Europe, and the poverty-stricken lands east of the Carpathians. So, it's a continuum in which Roman Catholicism had an advantage because it was more resilient and adaptive, but also because it had better geography.

I think if you want a cogent and learned analysis of this issue as it relates to Islam and the Umma then Ernest Gellner's Conditions of Liberty is a much better place to start than Hayek. The problem with Islam is not that it hasn't had a Reformation, but that its Reformation has been perpetual. And Islam's Adam Ferguson, a fellow named Ibn Khaldun, made it clear why this was so. The "High Islam" of the metropolitan centers has always been dependent on the "Low Islam" of the villages for leadership and military expertise. Catholicism too had a high version that was more "rational" and a low, or village, version that was influenced by traditional and even magical beliefs and superstition. And it is true that the organization of the Catholic church, at the time of Luther, played a critical role in that shift to a rationalizing worldview. But this wasn't the case in its early stages where, if anything, Protestantism was more intolerant and rigid than Catholicism.

Again, the issue was legitimation of behavior, not the "rule of law," which had already been established (no thanks to the Pope). And the specific behavior that was legitimated was the acquisition of wealth. When that became a religious good, or even an imperative, then the engine of rationalization was off and running... because that allowed, even demanded, that people plan the arc of their lives in a way that traditionalism was content to leave to chance, or fate. Calvinism was a rebellion against fate, motivated by fear.

And Weber even goes so far as to point out a specific difference between the predestination belief of Islam, which lead to fatalism and militarism, and the predestination beliefs of the Calvinists, which led to worldly acquisition. It was the "dual decree." Those who were not predestined for elect status were not merely left out, they were damned for eternity. Even worldly acquisition couldn't affect that awful judgment, for which humans had been destined before they were even born. But worldly acquisition could be a "sign" of what only God could really know for certain. And that had to suffice.

Islam, in contrast, applied predestination to the events of this world rather than the next, in a much more active way. There was no "dual decree" hanging over a Muslim's head. Those who were unsuccessful had no less hope in election after life than those who ruled. All that was at issue was a vague and popular sense of "kismet," or fate, and the ability to succeed in conquest. Men need not plan their lives, which could be redeemed by a single act. And it is more than Ironic that Sayyid Qutb has now linked that element of predestination to martyrdom, as Islamism makes a kind of last stand. The question is whether the Islamic world will legitimate that connection, when it appears to be a direct contradiction of other aspects of the faith. It is one thing to sacrifice your life as a demonstration for a greater good. But it is quite another to use that sacrifice to murder others, including the innocent. And this barbarism derives not from Islam, but from the underbelly of the European Counter-enlightenment. In the case of both the Nazis and the Phalange, which were the modern equivalent of the "Fifth Monarchists" of Cromwell's era, the barbaric innovation of suicide terrorism derived from a Counter-reformation.

What is not certain, at this point, is whether this difference in orientation toward the doctrine of predestination ("this world" for Islam, and "the next world" for the Calvinists) was a direct consequence of Cromwell's defeat. In other words the early Calvinists were militant and had a powerful belief in Providence that applied to "this world." And the emphasis seems to have shifted after their bid to establish a theocracy of sorts in England failed. The emphasis of Providence certainly shifted geographically to America's "City on a Hill," and it also may have shifted doctrinally to the afterlife. If that's the case, then bin Laden may become Islam's Cromwell...

Posted by Demosophist at December 5, 2003 03:49 AM | TrackBack