Blockchain, Nation-States, and The Ummah

The purpose of this article is not to conduct an in-depth exploration of blockchain-powered modes of governance or a technical delineation of how trustless environments are created through smart contract apparatuses. Rather it is to provide a current-state analysis of how modernity’s preeminent nation-state framework continues to wreak havoc unto the Muslim World by prioritizing the ambitions of centralized states and their direct beneficiaries to the detriment of Muslim unity. Furthermore, it foreshadows the role blockchain-based governance can play in dissolving nation-states and allowing Muslims around the globe to organize politically and socially in a cohesive manner based on common beliefs and shared notions of a civilizational target-state — especially at this turbulent time where the West-dominated world order begins to give way to Chinese ascendancy.

Modernity has posed a unique rupture to political organization, in a historical sense, through the ossification of nation-states: centralized entities primarily grounded in a constructed ethnolinguistic identity. While religious and ideological principles surely play a role in how these identities come to fruition, there is no doubt that geographic and spatial constraints are the primary sources of movement in shaping the states we reside in today.

The American Manifest calls for a republic stretching ‘from sea to shining sea’ — not surprising given the strategically attractive positioning European colonists found themselves when they arrived on a continent that was sparsely populated (granting that indigenous civilizations did exhibit significantly density below the Tropic of Cancer), rife with untapped resources, and defensively straddled between the Atlantic and Pacific.

While notions of the European Enlightenment heavily influenced the mode of governance the founders of the America sought to impart in their political experimentation, it was exactly the flexibility their geography granted them which allowed them to anchor their political machinations more purely in an abstract ideology — far away from the tremendous residue of centuries-old dynastic gambits that made up the bedrock of Europe.

While spatial constraints and cleavages can be bent through ideological fervor and military might (a prime example of which being the 7th and 8th century Arab conquests resulting shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad as the early Muslims sought to extend the rule of God and effectively re-wrote the very essence of the Persian plateau and the Southern Mediterranean), modernity’s hardening of polities through the deification of the state (going hand-in-hand with the demise of God-centric ethical frameworks) compounds the path-dependency of our present. This is a present where the Muslim world buckles under the weight of its post-colonial baggage. When it looks in the mirror it sees a mishmash of gate-keeper states ran by local rent-seeking elites of generational wealth who reap what they can within their unnaturally straight-lined political borders.

There are no more terrestrial landmasses to flee to in order to re-calibrate our social organization in line with a 1,400-year tradition grounded in divine revelation — a tradition that was violently disrupted and a destiny that was irreparably blunted. And even if there were, the politically fragmented nature of the Muslim World cannot achieve parity to the Chinese and Indian ascendancies we are witnessing first-hand as these behemoths fiercely channel their vast populaces towards the myopic pursuit of wealth creation and material armament under the watchful eyes of these two aforementioned state-gods: a realpolitik race the Neo-Europes increasingly lag in as Philosophical Liberalism and the resulting notion that man is the legislator of his own morality give rise to civic decay amongst an ever-metamorphizing flux of norms that prevent steady social cohesion.

Spatial conditions already underscore the increasing conformity of the Muslim World to the rise of the Dharmic East in addition to the concurrent cozying up to the Western Bloc. Pakistan’s unfortunate circumstance as a Siamese twin to India (conjoined at the hip of a +3,300 km militarized border) has compelled it to grow increasingly aligned to its ‘iron brother’ China (evidenced by initiatives like the China Pakistan Economic Corridor — the +$60B flagship project of China’s broader mercantilist One Belt One Road project for Afro-Eurasia) to the point where Pakistan (the only nuclear power of the Muslim World) has effectively become both a client-state of and a massive debtor to China — keeping the Islamic Republic tongue-tied when it comes to issues like the internment and oppression of the Uighurs in East Turkestan.

Meanwhile in their evergreen efforts of self-preservation, the monarchies of the Gulf continue to waltz with the economic powerhouses of the world in order to safeguard their enormous revenues, be it oil or tourism, allowing them to finance the continued pacification of their subject populations through panem et circuses. These serenades include the normalization of ties with Israel and the growing embrace of India as a trading partner and strategic friend — despite the ongoing brutalization of the Palestinian and Kashmiri populations. Surely crude oil and natural gas fetches a prettier penny than Muslim blood. Throw in their detest of Iran and the potential of its ‘revolutionary Islamism’ to erode Saudi’s positioning as the top dog in the neighborhood and you get the bloodily scabbed hotspots of Yemen and the Levant — perhaps whose greatest flaws result from their geographic proximity to the Gulf gang.

Turkey continues to wrestle with the Kemalist ghost that was deeply ingrained at the very origin of its modern statehood. Breaking loose from these chains is excruciatingly complicated by the nation’s adjacency to continental Europe. Previous bids to join the European Union, the current status as a NATO member, and the growing antagonism to Erdogan’s re-orientation towards the Islamicate by large swaths of secularized Turks serve as constant reminders of Turkey’s frustrating bi-polarity. Nor has the state remained immune to the downstream effects of the Gulf’s adventurism into the Levant as flare-ups in Syria on the Eastern Anatolian front re-ignite ethnic cleaves with the Kurdish population — a growing voice of separatism amidst the kaleidoscopic maneuvering of nation-states in the area that Turkey has focused on quelling to maintain the oft-cited realpolitik notion of ‘territorial integrity’.

While some Muslim states do accrue the benefits of geographic isolation and are able to maintain a strong semblance of stable autonomy (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia), a dismal state of affairs continues to be the recurring theme across the Ummah. Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh continues to pay homage to India (the key constituent to the Bengali state’s successful 1971 liberation war amidst the horrible excesses committed by Yahya Khan’s orchestration of the Pakistani military). While the nation’s rapid economic growth in recent years is impressive, it comes against the backdrop of violent secularization and the continued persecution of Islam-oriented political organization — resulting in a militant backlash that stokes the flames of Muslim-Hindu violence that we are witnessing again as of late. This state-sponsored eradication of social and political movements grounded in Islam can also be witnessed in Central Asia as the oil-rich autocrats of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan clamp down on the nascent religious revival that dares to surface in these post-Soviet satellites. The story continues with the repression of parties of similar ideology in North Africa as the fallout from the Arab Spring festers a decade after the initial upheavals — especially within Egypt and Libya.

It is important to note that the relative remoteness of West Africa does afford it a benign neglect from most of the world and the popularity of Tijani-centric Sufism and the informal authority exercised by local marabouts does lend itself well to a harmonious social fabric where the states of Senegal, Mauretania, and Mali are able to coordinate border resources amicably. That being said, these states’ embrace of French colonial legacy and the internalization of Francophonie to promote West African unity and maintain legitimacy on the global state in a West-dominated world does leave a bitter taste in the mouth of many traditionalists — resulting in sporadic militant and separatist movements.

The point being is that the nation-state framework of today results in detrimental outcomes for the Muslim Ummah as these state actors engage in self-preservation and warp our ethical attitudes. They effectively rally the support of their populaces through self-deification (the oft-cited slogan “Pakistan ka matlab kiya — La ilaha illAllah”, KSA’s reductive proclamation that the Quran is the state’s constitution, Ghaddafi’s Green Book, etc.) delivered through the state-sponsored educational apparatus, cultural and musical initiatives, and all forms of broadcasted media. Upon subconsciously accepting the state’s cosmic authority, we are easily roped up into accepting the legitimacy of its border skirmishes, militarization, political machinations, vote jockeying, resource extraction, and other manifestations of the state’s monopoly of violence — despite it occurring to the very real detriment of other Muslims and compromising our collective hopes for unity.

The path forward is to embrace a new plane of economic and social interaction that enables us to transact, engage, aid, and communicate beyond the reach of nation-states. The rise of blockchain and distributed ledger technology provides early proof points of material exchange in a decentralized manner that is only governed by the stakeholders that opt in. This effectively erodes the traditional gate-keeping capacities of the state. In most cases today, we trust the food of a restaurant, or the words of a scholar, or the instruction of an academic institution because of some kind of licensing or attestation by the state. Interestingly, this system of credibility is partially being supplanted by corporations — historically we may have trusted a cab because of their municipal-granted taxi license but for most of us now a verification from Uber may suffice. A listing on Airbnb provides comfort in a location being safe and habitable — as opposed to a state-granted hotel license. Point being that profit-maximizing centralized entities are already proving that power can be devolved from nation-states.

The imperative for Muslims now is to re-write our linkages into the virtual domain, in the absence of these modern gods. The possibilities are truly endless. Some that come to mind:

1. Common Currency Zone: A common currency grounded in a blockchain ledger for the globe’s Muslims regardless of which Javanese island or Kashmiri valley they reside in — immune to the inflationary effects of fiat currencies whose supply is pegged to the whims of politically elite classes that print, borrow, and de-monetize as they see fit. This has a broad range of ramifications for zakat, the funding of waqf’s, and capital allocation that reinforces Muslim unity (e.g., A Lahori issuing a sukuk to a Damascene financier to back a construction project in Dakar). As of December 2021, the value for a currency predicated on programmatic scarcity (i.e., supply is not controlled by a handful of political elites to finance exorbitant borrowing) can easily be seen in nations currently plagued by inflation, such as Lebanon, Turkey, and Pakistan. Families in these countries see the erosion of their savings on a constant basis and many are already turning towards alternative stores of wealth (such as gold, Bitcoin, or USD) to park their savings. The notion of a common currency for the Muslim World is a very broad and multi-faceted topic to which more writing in the future will be devoted to.

2. Scholarly Legitimization: The ability for the Ulema (the successors of the Prophets) to conduct jurisprudence outside the distortionary needs of the nation-state and implement rulings via smart contracts. Additionally digital identification afforded by distributed ledgering allows the granting of legitimacy to emerging scholars in a tamper-evident fashion (re-emphasizing the roles of sanad chains and transmittance-based learning in lieu of today’s state-granted licenses or propagandizing ‘educational’ institutions). More writing the future will be devoted to exploring the schemas of governance that Muslims can opt into and the hierarchies they choose to construct of their own volition as opposed to the realties they are forced into as part of the baggage of their colonial legacies. It is important to realize that moving forward, the communities created by the progression of the internet and the application of blockchain will be ones tied by common principles, beliefs, and values — as opposed to geographic proximity. The common denominator where we will lay the roots of our identity will be in ideas and principles, not land or geography.

3. Material Prosperity: While material advancement is not inherently an end-all be-all for the Muslim, we cannot understate that the security and agency of persons is tightly linked to their economic well-being, at least initially. Between insecure property rights, selective and biased application of contracts, state-appointed as well as informal intermediaries like local politicians or bureaucrats who must be paid fees or outright bribes, the Muslim World’s ability to develop economically has been fiercely stunted. Smart contract-based transactions can enable people of all socio-economic backgrounds (regardless of their documentation, citizenship, or status) to engage in wealth-accretive activities and build sustainable livelihoods. Most Muslims around the world cannot be expected to engage in civilization-building efforts or Muslim Reconstruction while their bellies are empty, have limited exposure to amenities like healthcare or learning, and face insecurity regarding the futures of their children and loved ones. It is extremely crucial to note however that material accumulation is a means and not an end. The day we are myopically focused on hoarding and accumulation is the day we have betrayed our Prophet — a sad state of affairs that we may be advancing closer towards. Material gain is only important to the extent it provides Muslims with autonomy to govern our own affairs and remain competitive with other civilizations (as global politics will always tend towards a hierarchy) — everything beyond that is inviting of fitna.

This article has provided a very cursory view of how the pre-existing nation-state framework promotes the detriment of Muslim unity and compounds many of the ills resulting from our colonial history. It also touches upon the stark departure that is required on our part in thinking about governance, knowledge transfer and preservation, sociopolitical organization, and how economic value is created, captured, and transacted. Muslim Reconstruction requires us to be early adopters of this ongoing paradigmatic shift if we are to rise from our stupor and achieve parity with the rest of the world. As the West recedes and the Asian giants of China and India arise, it is only by adopting the novel approach of blockchain-related organization that we can counter-position ourselves against these behemoths (whose very existence is predicated on centralization, which will inherently limit them as technology ushers in a new world), recalibrate our civilization, and set ourselves for success in this life and the next.

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