The Global Islamic Revival represents one of the most significant sociopolitical transformations of the past half-century. Muslims increasingly came to disavow secular or syncretic customs, instead studying scripture, abiding by the Quran, maintaining gender segregation and condemning deviation.
I attended the Zoom but there wasn't a way to ask questions, so I will ask here.
There is also a Hindu religious revival in India, and both a Christian & Muslim religious revival in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Are they really a separate phenomenon? Or instead, do Western Christianity & Communism lead to one way of reacting to globalization & modern technology, while South Asian/MENA/Sub-Saharan African cultures & histories lead to another?
This is not to dispute anything in your presentation; I think it's all correct! I just think maybe it's broader.
Wonderful points as ever. The hinduvta phenomena is gigantic, with a massive rise in expressed religiosity, though I think it’s interesting that practices in the diaspora vary significantly. And while there was a Thai Buddhist revival, they nevertheless legalised same sex marriage.
My answer, for what it's worth, is what does the religion teach? Islam has strict rules, and is about getting you to follow the rules. Dharmic religions in general don't have strict rules.
I think there is a simpler answer, and one that has been historically as influential in the rise and fall of Muslim religiosity: economics.
The rise tracks the economic power of particular Arab/Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE; initially this was oil wealth, but then diversified into international investment.
But that investment is generally different when investing in Western big business vs. in the global Muslim world; the wealthy oil states do invest in buying up Western IP, fo example Saabic bought up a big chunk of DuPont’s plastic production business, and they do have some engagement in venture capital in Silicon Valley. There is also, however, a great deal of investment in the Muslim world on a global basis.
However, when investing in the Muslim world much of that money is invested not through western banking but through traditional Islamic banking. It also comes with the strings of Wahhabism; oil rich gulf states do not invest much with non-Wahhabi Muslims, they invest much more with fellow Wahhabis. There is definitely an investment filter for those who conform to the ultraconservative beliefs of Wahhabism.
So for example in Malaysia the practice of Islam was much more diverse and liberal around the founding of Malaysian independence, but today is much more ultraconservative in line with Wahhabi dominance; the same is true and gaining traction in Indonesia.
So it’s an economic lever; the wealthy families and communities are those who get patronage and investment from the gulf states Wahhabis; to get employment and secondary investment in the local economy local Muslims have to conform with Wahhabi sentiments if not fully Wahhabi practice.
In parallel, Western investment generally does not flow to Islamic peoples in Southeast Asia or North Africa; Wall Street is generally not piling in on Muslim-owned businesses operating using traditional accounting standards in conformance with traditional banking. Generally speaking in Southeast Asia the west invests in Han Chinese owned ventures using global accounting standards or other non-Muslim ethnically owned businesses. This is particularly true in Singapore, for example.
The same basically holds true for North Africa, which has an extreme dearth of Western investment and even in places like Morocco the division between traditional banking and global standard banking creates a strong division in who can get Western financing.
So for Sunni Muslim people at least, adoption of ultraconservative Islam becomes an economic imperative to get jobs and financing. It even influences immigration to an extent; the average poor Muslim man looking to work abroad to send money home will prefer stints in the gulf states rather than Europe or the US, though the raw size of these economies, and for Europe, geographic proximity to North Africa does produce significant immigration.
This can be seen more clearly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is more cultural diversity and in some countries modernization. In Subsaharan countries that are modernizing and adopting Western-style global practices, foreign investment is generally from the West or China, and these are not Muslim majority states. But in the Muslim majority states, international finance is generally coordinated with traditional banking and gulf states rather than Western investment.
What would be very interesting to see now would be a comparison of attitudes differentiating between Muslim majority states that are Shia majority vs. Sunni, and further still that break down the Muslim population by which school of jurisprudence is dominant (e.g., Hanafi, Shafai’i, Maliki, Hanbali). Turkey is primarily Hanafi, Kurds are predominantly Shafai’i) etc. Turkey has much more access to western capital, as do Kurds, and are also more liberal.
This is also probably impacted to some degree with the current Saudi royals separating from Wahhabism to create political distance from Wahhabi-associated terrorism, but that is recent and it’s not really clear what this translates to as Saudi Arabia takes baby steps to modernization.
I actually wonder whether as ever, follow the money. There is funding of a specific sect of Islam... humans are simple creatures really. We are tribal because it helps survival.
I attended the Zoom but there wasn't a way to ask questions, so I will ask here.
There is also a Hindu religious revival in India, and both a Christian & Muslim religious revival in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Are they really a separate phenomenon? Or instead, do Western Christianity & Communism lead to one way of reacting to globalization & modern technology, while South Asian/MENA/Sub-Saharan African cultures & histories lead to another?
This is not to dispute anything in your presentation; I think it's all correct! I just think maybe it's broader.
Wonderful points as ever. The hinduvta phenomena is gigantic, with a massive rise in expressed religiosity, though I think it’s interesting that practices in the diaspora vary significantly. And while there was a Thai Buddhist revival, they nevertheless legalised same sex marriage.
My answer, for what it's worth, is what does the religion teach? Islam has strict rules, and is about getting you to follow the rules. Dharmic religions in general don't have strict rules.
I think there is a simpler answer, and one that has been historically as influential in the rise and fall of Muslim religiosity: economics.
The rise tracks the economic power of particular Arab/Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE; initially this was oil wealth, but then diversified into international investment.
But that investment is generally different when investing in Western big business vs. in the global Muslim world; the wealthy oil states do invest in buying up Western IP, fo example Saabic bought up a big chunk of DuPont’s plastic production business, and they do have some engagement in venture capital in Silicon Valley. There is also, however, a great deal of investment in the Muslim world on a global basis.
However, when investing in the Muslim world much of that money is invested not through western banking but through traditional Islamic banking. It also comes with the strings of Wahhabism; oil rich gulf states do not invest much with non-Wahhabi Muslims, they invest much more with fellow Wahhabis. There is definitely an investment filter for those who conform to the ultraconservative beliefs of Wahhabism.
So for example in Malaysia the practice of Islam was much more diverse and liberal around the founding of Malaysian independence, but today is much more ultraconservative in line with Wahhabi dominance; the same is true and gaining traction in Indonesia.
So it’s an economic lever; the wealthy families and communities are those who get patronage and investment from the gulf states Wahhabis; to get employment and secondary investment in the local economy local Muslims have to conform with Wahhabi sentiments if not fully Wahhabi practice.
In parallel, Western investment generally does not flow to Islamic peoples in Southeast Asia or North Africa; Wall Street is generally not piling in on Muslim-owned businesses operating using traditional accounting standards in conformance with traditional banking. Generally speaking in Southeast Asia the west invests in Han Chinese owned ventures using global accounting standards or other non-Muslim ethnically owned businesses. This is particularly true in Singapore, for example.
The same basically holds true for North Africa, which has an extreme dearth of Western investment and even in places like Morocco the division between traditional banking and global standard banking creates a strong division in who can get Western financing.
So for Sunni Muslim people at least, adoption of ultraconservative Islam becomes an economic imperative to get jobs and financing. It even influences immigration to an extent; the average poor Muslim man looking to work abroad to send money home will prefer stints in the gulf states rather than Europe or the US, though the raw size of these economies, and for Europe, geographic proximity to North Africa does produce significant immigration.
This can be seen more clearly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is more cultural diversity and in some countries modernization. In Subsaharan countries that are modernizing and adopting Western-style global practices, foreign investment is generally from the West or China, and these are not Muslim majority states. But in the Muslim majority states, international finance is generally coordinated with traditional banking and gulf states rather than Western investment.
What would be very interesting to see now would be a comparison of attitudes differentiating between Muslim majority states that are Shia majority vs. Sunni, and further still that break down the Muslim population by which school of jurisprudence is dominant (e.g., Hanafi, Shafai’i, Maliki, Hanbali). Turkey is primarily Hanafi, Kurds are predominantly Shafai’i) etc. Turkey has much more access to western capital, as do Kurds, and are also more liberal.
This is also probably impacted to some degree with the current Saudi royals separating from Wahhabism to create political distance from Wahhabi-associated terrorism, but that is recent and it’s not really clear what this translates to as Saudi Arabia takes baby steps to modernization.
Abdul is not a name.
I actually wonder whether as ever, follow the money. There is funding of a specific sect of Islam... humans are simple creatures really. We are tribal because it helps survival.