Both riba and the normalization of monogamy are essential to the process of industrialization. Without exception, Muslim societies that have pursued industrialization have seen a decline in polygyny and an increase in riba or riba-identical “Islamic” transactions.

Industrialization depends to a large extent on heavy concentrations of capital and a shift from a distributed, largely non-monetized economy, towards a more centralized economy based on abstract, representational currency and debt. In practice, this occurs along with the formation of elite, ultra-wealthy business families.

Riba concentrates wealth by creating large nodes of capital accumulation as industrialists entrust their money to bankers and investment funds, and then push legislation to compel the middle class to invest with the same bankers and investment funds. The poor need to use their money to survive, while the rich use their money to accumulate more money, leading to a continuous concentration in the distribution of wealth. Bigger concentrations of capital have a competitive advantage due to economy of scale and the ability to influence governments, which exacerbates the tendency toward capital concentration.

Legalizing riba is what enables these concentrations to form in the first place, because riba is necessary for fractional reserve lending to be worthwhile. Fractional reserve lending distorts the decision making process of economic actors by causing the relationship between abstract wealth and real value to diverge.

In other words, bankers create money out of nothing, and this money motivates people to work for the benefit of the bankers’ customers much more than they would ordinarily, because the perceived wealth embodied in the currency appears to be more worthwhile than other options. This illusion eventually has to break down, however, and it does so in the form of hyper-inflationary events, at which point it becomes clear that what has really been happening is a transfer of wealth from the working and middle classes to wealthy bankers and holders of capital.

Both riba and monogamy were required to arrive at this state of affairs. Monogamy prevents the distribution of wealth by limiting the number of legal heirs. Around the time of the industrial revolution it was common for the wealthy to have many illegitimate children, sometimes numbering in the dozens, none of whom were entitled to an inheritance.

These concentrations of wealth resulted in the oppressive class structure of Europe, which itself gave rise to the ongoing battle between capitalism and communism which has claimed millions of innocent lives. They also made possible the centralization of power necessary to finance costly research and development and the construction of industrial infrastructure.

Many people believe the technology that emerged from this centralization of power outweighs all of the negative side effects associated with the industrial revolution, such as rampant pollution, environmental destruction and the breakdown of traditional social structures. However, industrialization also had many negative economic effects which are often overlooked.

Industrial production is more efficient in terms of the rate of production, but tends to be much more wasteful. Household production is highly attuned to household needs, while industrial production leads to surpluses and shortages due to greater informational asymmetry between consumers and producers. This contributes to “booms” and “busts” associated with cycles of economic depression and war. These cycles have grown more severe in the modern era.

On the level of religion, this emphasis on technology has also led to exalting technology, the creation of human beings, while discarding humans, the creation of Allah. This is a logical consequence of a worldview that portrays Allah as a human being. The most recent manifestation of this problem is the drive to automate as many forms of human labor as possible and replace them with technology, while unemployment crises and wealth disparities intensify around the world.

Both the abolition of riba and an increase in the practice of polygyny can effectively counteract this trend by leading to a more even distribution of wealth and more sustainable forms of technology.