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A Damocles Sword of Crime and Heartbreak
An estimated 70% of prison inmates come from households with divorced or separated parents. Children of divorced parents are approximately nine times more likely to commit crimes.
How do homes get broken? There are usually multiple factors, but according to various surveys, the biggest single reason is extramarital affairs. What is the single biggest cause of extramarital affairs? Again, there are usually multiple overlapping factors, but according to surveys, the biggest single factor is men and women becoming attracted to each other in social settings and the workplace.
Why can’t men and women stop mixing in social settings? Because modern economies require it. These economies actually produce well above what humanity needs for a dignified existence, so why are such high levels of economic output needed? One reason is that people turn to excessive consumption to numb the spiritual pain of coming from a broken family, so it’s a vicious cycle. Another important reason is the fact that it is very expensive to keep all of this psycho-social trauma from tearing society apart.
America has only 5% of the world’s population, but 20% of the world’s prisoners. If America runs out of money, it will become impractical to maintain this expensive prison system. If prisoners start escaping, a crime wave will be unleashed which will erode the economic and social order of the country, leading to more escapes, and more violence.
European social control mechanisms seem to be more benign because they rely more on social control measures than direct violence and imprisonment, but they are no less expensive. These societies have lost traditional social structures capable of providing social services and security, and are now completely reliant on institutions like large corporations and states which are much less efficient than traditional structures.
The possibility of economic collapse is a sword hanging over the heads of the kuffar— it is the manifest threat of having to face the consequences of their own actions. The fear of facing this reckoning is why Americans are willing to be used as puppets in wars, fighting for agendas they don’t understand. This is what is required of them in order to keep the credit line open.
As they sink deeper and deeper into debt, the interest payments get higher and higher. The pressure increases. More and more people cope with the psychological trauma of this miserable situation by turning to drugs and entertainment. Those who don’t escape into drugs or mindnumbing entertainment turn to false promises instead. “We can fix it by building a wall! Really, the problem is outside of us! It’s not inside of us!”
America can’t police the world anymore. They can’t even police themselves. -
Low Fertility, High Technology versus High Fertility, Low Technology
The rise of the prominence of economics as a discipline is inevitable with the mechanization of war. Strategy and tactics matter less and less, and the outcomes of wars are increasingly determined by economic exhaustion rather than spectacular tactical victories.
The reliance on costly military-industrial complexes for security puts massive pressure on nations to integrate into the globalized liberal order, because such a wide range of materials and inputs are required for the development and maintenance of these complexes. This pressure is one of the main control mechanisms used to suppress sharia.
The successful resistance of the liberal order by the Muslims of Afghanistan signals a shift towards an alternative model which can be replicated and deployed elsewhere with the permission of Allah. This model could be called a high fertility, low technology model. It’s not really low technology, though, because humans and animals are actually much more sophisticated than any man-made technology. What I mean by technology here is mechanized, industrial, humanmade technology. The kuffar sacrifice fertility for this technology, thus pursuing a low fertility, high technology strategy.
This sacrifice takes the form of trading early marriage for lengthy education to generate technicians capable of producing, maintaining, and operating technology. In other words, they choose to rely on what their own hands produce rather than upon the creation of Allah. Not only do they delay marriage to accomplish this, they also kill their children through contraception and abortion.
They also use their technology to attack and kill children in other countries, insult these countries as being inferior because of having lower life expectancy, and then offer “development” assistance to help them increase their life expectancy. They believe their way of life is superior, so they try to impose it on everyone else in the world.
The reality is that it’s impossible for everyone to live like them because the earth is not designed to support this kind of lifestyle. In fact, people chasing the false hope of being able to live this lifestyle is the main reason that the kuffar are able to afford it in the first place, because people running after this false hope generates demand for Western goods and services, and Satan’s beautification of this evil lifestyle also helps to convince Muslims to accept the invasion, occupation, and acculturation of their lands.
The remedy for this disease is to obey Allah and his Messenger ﷺ with regards to marriage: marry as soon as you have the ability, and don’t kill your children for fear of poverty. Don’t damage your family by looking at or interacting with non-mahram women, or allowing your wife to interact with non-mahram men. This results in loving marriages that produce children faster than the kuffar are able to kill them.
This is why the IMF makes “development” loans conditional on higher female participation in formal education and the formal labor force. This directly undermines a society’s ability to resist the liberal order. Placing an expectation of formal, secular education upon girls encourages them to delay marriage, thus lowering fertility. When they use this education to go and work outside the home, the quality of marriages declines and divorce increases, lowering both the quality and quantity of the population, and pushing them instead toward dependence on Western-dominated forms of government and industry.
It must be understood that programs that promote secular education, particularly among girls, are direct complements to hostile military actions by disbelieving nations, so it makes no sense to treat invading soldiers differently than those who are actively engaged in promoting and implementing these kinds of programs. The strength of the Islamic economic and political system is supported by modesty, just as fahisha is integral to the strength of the liberal economic and political order. -
Female Circumcision
The strongest view in Islamic scholarship is that female circumcision is mustahab, and if done properly it is certainly beneficial. So why do adherents of humanism lose their heads about it? There are two main issues here: individualism and materialism.
Individualism
Extremism in individualism leads humanists to focus on individual rights to the point of blinding themselves to communal benefit and the eventual dividends that communal benefits can provide to individuals. For humanists, the idea of reducing a woman’s sexual stimulation and desire appears to be a violation of her individual right to pleasure, which in their worldview is the purpose of life. For them, the state and heavy industry have filled the role of the state, so the integrity of the family has little to no meaning or value for them.
They can’t understand the value of the family, because most of the progenitors of the ideology of humanism come from societies where families, and extended families in particular, have been sacrificed in exchange for material things. The importance of protecting the family is not even “on the radar” for them.
Does reduced sexual desire on the part of women protect the integrity of families? Yes. Can there be any doubt that adultery will be less prevalent in a society that practices female circumcision? In almost all instances in the book of Allah, when Allah mentions men and women together He mentions men first, except in the case of zina.عَنْ أُسَامَةَ بْنِ زَيْدٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا عَنْ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ مَا تَرَكْتُ بَعْدِي فِتْنَةً أَضَرَّ عَلَى الرِّجَالِ مِنْ النِّسَاءِ
Usama bin Zaid reported that the Prophet ﷺ said “I have not left a trial after me more harmful to men than women”
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4808There is no question that the Christians went to extremes in their handling of women’s sexuality. Martin Luther, in writing on women’s sexual pleasure, described it as a disease associated with the act of procreation, akin to epilepsy.
This extremism is the real root of feminism. After centuries of cruel and excessive repression, Western civilization has recoiled against these excesses by going to the other extreme, conceiving the pursuit of individual pleasure the entire purpose of their existence, and trying to maximize pleasure in any way possible.Materialism
This search for pleasure points to the other critical problem with humanism; materialism. Christian theology also plays a role here. Christians imagine the afterlife as a purely spiritual affair characterized by bliss and ecstasy— but without a body, and without sex.
As such, on a subconscious level, there is a cultural belief embedded into Christendom that this life is their only chance to enjoy sexual pleasure. A Muslim, on the other hand, knows that the pleasure of this life is but little in comparison to the pleasure of the akhira, which includes sexual pleasure.
Christians have long criticized Muslims for our sensual vision of paradise, with delicious food, beautiful houses and beautiful women. Many Christians regarded these as “carnal” pleasures, or pleasures of the flesh, and cast a negative light on pleasure of this nature. This highly negative view of “carnal” pleasures resulted in excessively austere lifestyles, which eventually drove Western culture to recoil and embrace materialistic hedonism.Ulterior Motives
When it comes to the modern attacks on female circumcision, there are also ulterior motives. For political reasons, the West has to claim that their way of life is superior. They can then use imposition of their individualistic and materialistic values on other cultures as a justification for imperialism.
By dwelling on this very intimate issue, they can point to the inferiority of other cultures (according to their worldview) and prove that they need to intervene and spread their way of life to “save” misguided Muslims. This helps stir up support for their war effort, lending a moral legitimacy to their aggression against the Muslims.
In the process of oppressing and exploiting Muslim countries under these false pretexts, they gain access to resources, cheap labor, and export markets for their products and services.The Reality
Female circumcision, if done properly, represents a middle way between extremes. By removing the clitoral hood, the rubbing on the clitoris when a woman moves is reduced, which means she is less stimulated in her daily life, and consequently has less sexual desire. In the actual act of intercourse, however, the barrier of the clitoral hood is removed which means she can receive more stimulation from her husband. In short, this means that overall sexual desire outside of the marital relationship is reduced, while sexual stimulation within the marital relationship is increased.
So the bond of the family is strengthened, and a barrier is put in place on one of the avenues that could threaten the integrity of the family. This perspective enables reconciling two different narrations from the Prophet ﷺ . In one hadith, he recommended female circumcision because it “brightens the face” of the woman, but in another, he said that it is a protection for her honor. Additionally, female circumcision makes hygiene easier and improves vaginal odor.
A number of non-Muslim tribes in Africa, and some ignorant Muslims, practice an extreme form of female circumcision which involves removing the clitoris and sometimes labia completely. This represents the opposite extreme from the humanists. These tribes are willing to sacrifice the sexual pleasure of individual women to a large extent for the communal interests, just as Western humanists are willing to sacrifice communal interests to a large extent for the sake of individual pleasure.
While traveling in Africa, it was very clear to me that the societies with extremism in this regard had much stronger family and tribal bonds than the West. This highly communal approach of African tribes, like Western individualism, has certain advantages and disadvantages. Islam represents a balance between these extremes. -
The Riba-Monogamy Nexus
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. -
The Wisdom of Women’s Obligation of Sexual Availability to their Husbands
Some people think that the command for a woman to have sex with her husband any time he approaches her is oppressive to women. On the contrary, it is a form of protection. There are some analogues to hijab here, because hijab is also viewed by those who lack understanding to be oppressive, and like observing hijab, always being sexually available to her husband can sometimes be uncomfortable or inconvenient for a woman.
To see how this command is protective of women, consider how easily a wife refusing her husband’s advance can become a vicious cycle that damages the marital bond. If a woman refuses sex because she is busy or not feeling well, her husband’s desire can easily be directed somewhere else. It may be looking at a video of a woman, chatting with a woman, or something similar.
When almost any woman sees such behavior from her husband, she can easily become upset. This can lead her to feel further repelled from him, or to be emotionally detached during sex, making the sex less satisfying for both her and the husband, further damaging the marriage and further pushing the husband to seek other outlets for his desire. This may not be an intentional decision by the husband, but it can put him at an elevated risk of developing a connection with another woman. If this happens, it can easily result in still more detachment, leading to a vicious cycle which ends in divorce.
There are surely more benefits to this legislation that may not be apparent. Such is the nature of the law of Allah— the more you analyze it, the more layers of wisdom and benefit you will find. -
Understanding Saudi Marriage Laws
What happens if a Saudi citizen wants to marry a Muslim who is not a Saudi citizen? There are a few requirements.
First, a man must be no older than 55 years old, or 50 for a woman. Any older than this, and the marriage is not allowed. If they are under this age, the person they want to marry must be no more than 15 years younger than them. So a 54 year old Saudi man cannot marry a 38 year old non-Saudi woman, but he may marry a 39 year old non-Saudi woman, and a 49 year old Saudi woman may not marry a 33 year old non-Saudi man, but she may marry a 34 year old non-Saudi man.
A man must be no younger than 40 to marry a non-Saudi citizen, and a woman may be no younger than 30. So a 39 year old man or a 29 year old woman wanting to marry a non-Saudi will need to wait a year. The marriage requires government approval, and this approval will only be granted to a Saudi man who has a salary of over 3000 rials (around 800 USD) and owns a house. If the Saudi citizen who wants to marry is divorced, they may not marry the non-Saudi until 2 years after divorce.
If the Saudi citizen wants to marry a non-Saudi citizen as a second wife, he will need a certificate from a hospital stating that his first wife is unable to have sexual intercourse or unable to bear children. The certificate must be endorsed by the ministry of health. The man also has to sign a certificate acknowledging that his wife may not have the right to Saudi nationality.
A non-Saudi citizen is not allowed to marry a Saudi woman as a second wife under any circumstances. If he wants to marry her as a first wife, he must prove he has no criminal record and no infectious or genetic diseases. He can never have served in the military of any country, must have a salary of at least 4000 riyal (around 1100 USD), must have a valid residence permit, and must own a house or apartment.
Any non-Saudi citizen wanting to marry a Saudi citizen must have a nationality. Stateless individuals do not have the legal right to marry. The individual will also have to pass a series of security checks before the marriage is approved.
So how can we explain these seemingly insane regulations? This is partly a result of the modern model of governance. These laws are mainly about preventing non-citizens from benefiting from the social services in the country and taking more wealth than they generate for the country. In other words, these regulations are designed to prevent wealth outflows. Since stability is maintained by satisfying the desires of the people, it’s necessary to maintain lucrative patronage networks by encouraging marriage between citizens.
But many wealthy liberal democracies also provide services to their citizens, including legal protections, infrastructure, education, and health care, but they are much more open when it comes to granting citizenship to non-citizens. Why?
Europe and America derive their wealth largely from productive activities like manufacturing and services rather than natural resource extraction. Expanding the labor pool adds value to their economies. Even unemployed people who collect benefits increase consumption and demand, generating more jobs and economic activity.
An economy like Saudi Arabia’s depends mainly on the extraction of non-renewable natural resources. Domestic consumption is highly dependent on imports, so adds little value to the economy. Giving cash benefits or rights to non-citizens does not strengthen the economy or the state much at all. Rather, it depletes their limited reserves.
Legal measures designed to promote concentration of wealth within a single nation depend on a very materialistic mindset and a short time frame. If you support your Muslim brothers and sisters financially, even if you lose some material wealth, Allah’s bounty and generosity is unlimited. You will build goodwill and relationships of mutual support which can turn into trade networks spanning the ummah and generating sustainable wealth.
For example, it’s quite common for intermarriage to result in trade ventures between two different countries. On paper, there may be a financial loss, but there may be a substantial gain when it comes to social and intellectual capital. Furthermore, stronger links between Muslim families from different regions increases the unity of the ummah, which translates to greater political strength and a stronger sense of unity.
The Saudi government doesn’t seem believe it can get much meaningful support from Muslims, or Allah, for that matter. Rather, they depend primarily on support from America and Europe. This is why Americans, Europeans, and even Japanese, Korean and Chinese mushrikeen are now allowed to travel freely in and out of the lands of the Haramain, while Muslims around the world do not have this right.
They prefer to form deeper bonds with wealthy disbelievers rather than Muslims, because they believe they will derive more worldly benefit from them. If they used their intellects rather than obeying their shayateen, they would understand that the prevailing world system is unsustainable, and that their “friends” from Europe and America will abandon them when the going gets tough (if they don’t betray them outright, which is very likely).
Sooner or later, those in power in the United States will have to make the choice of whether to save its own people, or to save its Saudi allies, and they will certainly favor their own people.
At that point, the Saudi elite will find themselves without the support that they have grown dependent upon, and will also find themselves surrounded by hundreds of millions of people they have been disrespecting and who they’ve severed their ties with.
Preventing poor Muslims from going to hajj, abusive labor practices, and taking the profits from this exploitative behavior and spending it on obscene levels of luxury and ostentation builds up a lot of ill will. At some point, the chickens will come home to roost, and they will pay the price of their oppression, both in this world and the hereafter, except for those who repent and turn to good works. -
Socio-Economic Advantages of Polygyny Over Monogamy
In the long run, monogamous societies are at a distinct disadvantage to a society that practices polygyny within the bounds of Islamic regulations. There are a number of reasons for this.
- The most successful males, probably those with the best genes, reproduce more. This increases the overall genetic quality of society.
- Less available females means there is more need to go to war to acquire more females. This is a problem if the society’s values are bad, but in the case of Islam, it means male sexual desire is directed toward spreading and establishing the truth.
- In the process of war, the weaker males die and the females are distributed among the stronger warriors, making the next generation stronger.
- Expansion means absorbing new ethnic groups, which increases genetic diversity. Genetic diversity is correlated to overall health and vitality of the population.
- In an economy based on household labor, optimal economic output requires that men capable of maintaining multiple households do so. Polygyny increases overall output. If a woman marries a man who cannot provide the resources necessary for her to achieve peak productivity, the whole society loses out.
- Economies based on households improve the standing and rights of women, because they have direct control over
production. Feminism only became necessary when production was removed from the home and moved into factories owned by men. An economic model based primarily on household labor thus improves the quality of relationships and families through mutual interdependence. - Wives in polygynous marriages have more time to focus on child rearing and education, since there is less demand placed on them when it comes to caring for their husband.
- Concentration of wealth and influence is discouraged. Wealthy men are more likely to have a large number of children, all of whom inherit wealth and influence. European aristocrats had dozens of dispossessed illegitimate children, which led to severe inequality and social tension.
Overall, a polygynous society will tend to be stronger, healthier, more expansionist, and more equitable than a monogamous society. In the short term, industrial production can outperform the model of household-based production, but industrialized economies have a large number of externalized costs which accumulate with time.
In this analysis, industrialization is explicitly associated with monogamy. This is because it requires an unnatural level of capital accumulation, which would be impossible if industrialists, financiers, and aristocrats gave equal rights to all of their offspring, rather than marginalizing illegitimate offspring. - The most successful males, probably those with the best genes, reproduce more. This increases the overall genetic quality of society.
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The Link Between Monogamy and Democracy
Monogamy is a uniquely Greek and Roman institution. Although it came to be associated with Christianity, in reality, it is entirely foreign to the message brought by Jesus, alaihi asalam. Greek culture was unique in antiquity for the practice of monogamy, while almost all other contemporaneous cultures practiced polygyny. The ancient Greeks considered monogamy as a mark of their superiority over “barbarians,” which was a term used to denote all non-Greeks.
The ancient Greeks also considered democracy to be a mark of their superiority over non-Greeks. The survival of democratic government was actually dependent on monogamy to some extent. Democracies necessarily depend on large slave classes because of the time, education and resources required for effective democratic participation. Politicians do not produce the necessities of life while they are debating, so they usually require support from laborers.
If children borne by slaves had the same rights as citizens, the slave class would eventually disappear, because as slaves became politically active, they would vote to legislate more rights for slaves. This means there had to be a “hard” line between the citizen and slave classes in order to preserve the privilege of the citizenry, and the institution of democracy itself. Democracy is also jeopardized if political participation is opened to too many unqualified individuals.
Ironically, the ideal underlying democracy is that distributing power will lead to a more just outcome, according to the principle that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The reality of democracy, however, is that it both depends upon and propagates elitism and concentration of power, since the citizenry always votes to preserve and augment their own wealth and privilege. In modern times, this tendency manifests as exclusion by means of nationality and national borders.
An Islamic, polygynous society actually achieves the ideal that democracy claims to represent, since legitimate heirs are numerous, preventing the crystallization of social hierarchies into dynasties or oligarchies. Ideally, there is no permanent strata of political elite. This actually leads to more social mobility, which prevents the buildup of social tension which can lead to instability and violence.
It’s unclear exactly how or why Christianity became monogamous, but the most likely explanation is that it was the cultural influence of the Roman empire, which had adopted Greek marital norms. Many of the authors and early exegetes of the New Testament were Greek, and they may have influenced translations and interpretations that were later viewed as supporting monogamy.
In some ways, the entire trajectory of Western civilization can be seen as influenced by monogamy. Rendering many children illegitimate and depriving them of social status and inheritance rights enabled concentration of wealth and power, which in turn financed the industrial revolution.
The rise of communism in the last 200 years is a response to this tendency toward excessive concentrations of wealth. For example, both the French and Russian revolutions focused on killing elite families and distributing their wealth and privilege. Both the French and Russian revolutionary movements were also fiercely anti-religious, and largely viewed religion as being the cause of widespread oppression and injustice.
It’s interesting that the institution of monogamy helped pave the way for the revival of democracy in Europe. This lends weight to the view that adopting one aspect of a comprehensive belief system will eventually lead to adopting other aspects of that same belief system.
Ya Ummati 