
Islamic Libertarianism in the Quran - woodandsteel
http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/2016/01/islamic-libertarianism-in-quran.html
======
iofj
There's of course an alternative explanation for the libertarianism
experienced at the start of the islamic conquests.

The first few centuries the explanation was simply : there were no muslims the
vast majority of the region talked about. The islamic golden age was
Christians, mostly under a fractured and declining Christian government (a
theocracy in some respects even), Persians and Hindus. VERY few muslims.
Therefore there is a case to be made that islam simply spread during a golden
age of Christian civilization, during a golden age of the Eastern Roman Empire
mostly.

In the later centuries, when the situation was already deteriorating
dramatically and even then that was still true. Vast, vast majorities of non-
muslims, with a small muslim elite running the government, but all economic
activity in Christian/Hindu (and some cases Jewish) hands. When the regions
hit a little over 10% muslim population the situation became untenable and
everything collapsed, never to improve until the oil.

Even today, when you count workers, Saudi Arabia does not have a muslim-
majority economy (note that they have unemployment of >70% when you discount
immigrants). In fact, it may not even have a muslim-majority population,
depending on what numbers you believe.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population)

------
simonh
I think the author is making a mistake by characterising all libertarian
islamic thought as being 'Murjiite'. The Murjiites were a specific historical
religious and political movement and we really don't know all that much about
what they believed and how they put that into practice. Furthermore since a
Murjiite assassinated Ali, calling modern Muslims Murjiites associates them
with that act in a way that's wholly counterproductive. Other than that I
enjoyed the article and found much to agree with.

~~~
webwanderings
Kharijite assassinated Ali.

