Religion’s Impact on the Arab Spring: a Functionalist’s Perspective

On 18 December 2010 Mohammed Bouazizi, a humiliated street vendor in Tunisia,  protested his mistreatment at the hands of the Tunisian Government by committing suicide through self-immolation, and thus began the Arab Spring across the Maghreb, Levant, and throughout Arabia.  In this post we look at religion from a functionalist’s perspective, expand that perspective to include Islam and its impact to tribal Arab culture, and potential impacts to stability in the Middle East as the manifest and latent functions and dysfunctions shape the emerging governments in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Structural functionalism is the sociological theoretical perspective that states society is a composition of many parts that work together.  The Sociologist Robert Merton used the term functions to refer to the beneficial aspects of these parts and dysfunctions to refer to the adverse aspects of these parts (Henslin 16).  The intended consequences or impacts of an action are referred to as manifest functions while the unintended consequences of an action are referred to as either latent functions or latent dysfunctions. 

The text describes some the functions of religion as: it provides answers to the questions of ultimate meaning; it provides emotional comfort in times of crisis by placing it in the context of the ultimate meaning of the individual and life; teachings and rituals can define a community of believers and create social solidarity; laws of health and rules of conduct provide guidelines for everyday life; The guidelines for everyday life can also set limits on people’s behavior and provide for social control—both for believer and non-believer; although religion generally preserves the social order, once it catches the vision, it can become and engine of social change (Henslin, 358).  The text also identifies war and persecution as latent dysfunctions of religion (Henslin 359).

Seventh Century Arab tribal culture was characterized by predatory tribal expansion and raiding in an effort to increase livestock, water resources and pasturage.  Regardless of its origins, the constitution of rules provided by the prophet Muhammed (PBUH) in the form of Quranic Suras and Hadiths united the feuding Bedouins in Medina and later all Arabs by submitting to God and following his path—Sharia.  Islam provided the social solidarity of uniting Arabs to the greater Umma or body of  believers and pitting the  dar al-Islam (the land of Islam) against the dar al-harb (the land of infidels and conflict)(Salzman, 25).  Although from our perspective, this may be seen as a dysfunction, in the context of the culture for which it was introduced, it was a manifest function.  It answered the questions of ultimate meaning, emotional comfort, social solidarity social control and guidelines for everyday life.

Islam’s acknowledgement that Judaism and Christianity were previous versions that had become perverted granted practitioners of those faiths the special status of Children of the Book which allowed them to live but required of them a humiliation and subjugation (Bat, 40-41).  In the function of the greater meaning, Islam supersedes all other laws and theologies.  One of its functions is that especially in Arabic cultures, it permeates all aspects of existence to guide and direct daily life and governance. 

In Western pluralistic thought a jurist can make a ruling according to the law that may be at odds with his personal religious views (e.g. a religious judge ruling against school prayer citing the Constitution’s First Ammendment).  This schizophrenia does not exist in the minds of the adherents of Islam.  This incongruity of thought led to the assassination of President Anwar Sadat for committing the heresy of making peace with the Jewish state that dared to establish itself in the dar al-Islam.  The weapons and funding provided to his successor by the Christian country, USA, which was then used to further subjugate the Egyptians was even reflected in the poetry of the Egyptian poet who visited Westminster earlier in the semester.

The functions, both manifest and latent, of Islam in Arabic culture will eventually stabilize the societies of the Maghreb  and elsewhere in the wake of the Arab Spring.  Social solidarity and social order will be established.  However, what is functional in Arabic societies may be dysfunctional to Western societies and vice versa.  Western society seeks a stable region with the existence of the Jewish state.  Arabic society due to a function of its religion seeks the restoration of Arab lands to the dar al-Islam.  In the wake of the Arab Spring, I suggest that the Arabs will return to the core values and functions provided by Islam.  While functional for Arabs, this will likely increase tensions in the region and create a greater challenge for Western diplomats who will interpret some functional aspects of Islam as being dysfunctional to foreign policy goals.

Works Cited

Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.

Henslin, James M. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-earth Approach­—9th Edition Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2011.

Salzman, Philip Carl. "The Middle East's Tribal DNA." Middle East Quarterly 15.1 (2008): 23-33. Academic Search Premier. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.