Revealed Libertarianism

Minaret of Freedom tries to square the Quran with the free market. A Reason interview

Tim Cavanaugh | July 28, 2003

(Page 5 of 5)

You've given some provocative insights on school vouchers and their potential pitfalls. During the twentieth century, the Catholic Church built an enormous parochial school system without the kind of incentives vouchers provide. Would it be possible to build a similar Islamic school system?

That's not a difficult question. It is possible, and the big question is how you compete against a tax-subsidized system. The reason the Catholics were able to compete is frankly that they were so discriminated against. They had a double motivation in setting up their system. They would set up one that was not only intellectually superior, but where they were not being discriminated against. Until September 11 that was not the case with the Muslims. Not to say Muslims weren't discriminated against, but the discrimination against Muslims was not powerful enough to motivate them to pay the additional cost involved in building their own school system. However, lately the discrimination against Muslims has become much more severe, and if it stays that way, they may well be in the position the Catholics were in when they set up their own system.

I hope that doesn't sound like I'm advocating discrimination against Muslims.

What is the proper place for religion in public life?

The American system is on track for that. The government has no place in religion whatsoever, but people in the public eye—even if they're government officials—have a place for their own religious beliefs. If George W. Bush wants to have Billy Graham or even Franklin Graham invoke a blessing on his inauguration, he has the right to do that. And I'll respect that just as I know that if somehow a Muslim got elected and had an Imam giving a Muslim blessing, that would be accepted. As long as the government isn't telling people what to believe or subsidizing or obstructing religious beliefs, that's fine. I think we are moral beings, and for people who are religious, their religion articulates their moral values, so it's quite appropriate for them to be open about their religious beliefs. It's better to be open about it than secretive about it.

What do Islamic law and Islamic economics have to say to secular, agnostic or atheist libertarians?

Just as when some westerners talk about "western values" when they're really talking about universal values, I think some Muslims go around talking about Islamic values when they're really talking about universal values. They're universal values that have been articulated by Islam, but they are values for everybody whether they're Muslim or not. I think that the biggest thing for agnostic or atheist libertarians to learn from Islamic law and economics is how the experience of Muslim civilization confirms our libertarian theory. In fact, when I see people try to deny the role of Islamic teachings in the success of Islamic civilization, I propose a thought experiment: Ask yourself, as a libertarian, if you really believe that free markets and liberty are necessary to human progress, then how was it possible for the Islamic civilizations to have been so successful for so many hundreds of years? Either they were established on similar principles, and therefore prove our point, or they were established on different principles and disprove our point. As someone who firmly believes that we are correct about these things, I find it important to note that the Islamic civilization was built on those principles.