Alternative futures for Muslims: challenges to linear and cyclical macrohistory

When the future of Muslims is discussed, whether by mullah, political leader, or believer, most tend to resort to the historical memory of the time of the rightly guided caliphs, when the Prophet's principles of moral leadership and shura (deep consultation with the believers) were practiced. It is this past—a living prophet with a geographically bounded state—that remains the vision of the future for many Muslims. In this sense, one can paradoxically argue that Christians were more fortunate that Jesus did not succeed (during his time) in creating a Christian state. The fact that a utopian Christian state never existed allowed room for ideas of future state systems, a notion of progress, and a movement toward a better future. For Muslims, the past attainment of a perfect or near perfect Islamic state and society may not have been the blessing it is often assumed to have been. Social and political ‘progress’ has focused on returning to the ideal-perfect era. As well, social and technological innovations have become limited as many muslims have tended to make the fundamental error of ‘misplaced concretism’. That is, the details of the earlier epoch are re-engineered—the strong warrior male leader, the hijab for women, the battle of good and evil, tribal politics, and other particulars of 7th century life. This period is taken out of history and decontextualized. Instead of focusing on a productive future, concrete dimensions of the past are re-imagined. They are brought back and used as tools for social control, particularly against the most vulnerable. Traditionally this memory of an idealized past was used for nation-building, but now it is used as part of the larger quest to create a modern Khalifate—an integrated empire