Conflict Theory and Islam

Wishing to keep my blog in focus, the next few posts will be the sharing and documenting of reflections which I stumble upon while reading up on the major sociological theories and what they say about religion and character. Every blog post will end with a focused question, to enable further reflection and thought. Your comments are welcome.

I’m currently musing doing a research degree on the topic of character. Because my potential primary supervisor is trained in sociology, I need to approach the subject of character from a sociological perspective.  

One social theory is “Conflict Theory.” Per Conflict Theory, religion can reinforce and promote social inequality and social conflict. This view is partly inspired by the work of the German philosopher Karl Marx, who famously said that religion was the “opiate of the masses”. By this he meant that religion, like a drug, makes people happy with their existing conditions. Marx repeatedly stressed that workers needed to rise-up and overthrow the bourgeoisie. To do so, he said, they needed first to recognize that their poverty stemmed from their oppression by the bourgeoisie. But people who are religious, he said, tend to view their poverty in religious terms. They think it is God’s Will that they are poor, either because He is Testing their faith in Him or because they have violated His rules. Many people believe that if they endure their suffering, they will be rewarded in the Afterlife. Their religious views stem from a spiritual belief and therefore do not lead them  to blame the capitalist class for their poverty and thus not to revolt. For these reasons, said Marx, religion leads the poor to accept their fate and helps maintain the existing system of social inequality.

The rise of Islam in 7^th Century Arabia is evidence against Marx’s views. The Prophet Muhammad battled against the oppression of the poor by the bourgeoisie of his society because of religious values. He taught his fellow Arabians that a person’s worth is not determined by what clan he is born into—in those days some clans were thought to be more prestigious than other clans—but by his God-fearingness and character. Character is the mark of a man, not possessions or lineage.

Marx’s theory may have related to a certain people at a certain time, but it does not translate or transcend era and culture. Do you think Conflict Theory relates to the unfortunate circumstances individuals in Muslim majority countries find themselves in?