The benefits of the crusades vs. the benefits of the current terrorist group (ISIS)
Introduction
Since the medieval ages, religion has been used to spread acts of narrow-mindedness against others. From the time of the Christian inquisitions and crusades to the current Islamic jihadism and terrorism, this fundamentalist attitude has caused the death of many. At its root, is the selfishness and ambition for power and wealth that rules the hearts of men. Religious organizations are responsible for establishing the moral fiber in the society. They undertake this duty by selling the concept of ‘salvation’. In return, they obtain rent in the form of tithes in order to intercede on behalf of individuals to the creator for the forgiveness of sins. Rent-seeking initiatives of religious institutions still abound in the modern society, especially where such organizations have the support of the political class. The Crusades were violent radical military campaigns prompted and started by the Catholic Church in response to Islamic dominance in the eastern region. A modern picture of religious monopoly is the Wahhabi movement in the Middle East that driven the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Despite being centuries apart, the crusades and Wahhabism employed similar scare tactics to legitimize their authority. This paper touches the history of the crusades and ISIS, and their economic motivations.
The background of the Crusades
The origin of the Crusades traces back to the eleventh century, including regions such as Asia Minor, Europe, and Palestine. They arose as a deterrent to the Muslim dominance in the East that threatened the hold of the Roman Catholic Church in those territories. Although the primary cause of the crusade is attributed to the Byzantine emperor’s military support request to the church, other self-interest goals were also at play. These goals included improving poverty and easing population pressures in Europe, search for fame, glory and wealth, religious hysteria, and the papal ambition to unite the Eastern Orthodox Church with the Western Catholic Church. In their quest for more lands, the Turks harassed the Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Fearing further invasions, the Byzantine emperor sought military assistance from the Roman church. In a passionate plea to the European knights in France, Pope Urban II implored them to fight in defense of the Holy City, by wiping out the infidels. In return, the church offered spiritual rewards in the form of indulgence. The church captured Jerusalem by the end of the first crusade in 1099 CE. The crusader brutality was unrivaled as they stole from villages on their way and executed the Muslims and Jews of Jerusalem upon their arrival. Despite their apparent success, the church spent the next two crusades fighting to maintain their control over Jerusalem. The failure of the third crusade resulted in the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem. The subsequent Crusades were a failure and only resulted in deaths, commercial looting, and severe damage to the credibility of the church.
The background of ISIS
ISIS has originated from the Sunni rebellion that followed the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States in 2003. Al-Qaeda in Iraq led the rebellion (AQI), under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The AQI changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq after his death in 2006 following a U.S. airstrike. Abu Bakr al-Baghdad, its current leader, assumed leadership of the organization in 2010. He expanded the hold of the terrorist group into Syria, forming the Islamic State of Iraq and the al-Shams or the Levant (ISIS or ISIL). The group has grown to become one of the richest terrorist groups globally by commanding a budget that exceeds $2 billion (Sampson, 2014). The terrorist organization aims at establishing an Islamic state or a caliphate under one religious and political ruler. Among their plans is the capture of Baghdad, after a shocking victory in key cities such as Tikrit and Mosul. ISIS holds a fundamentalist Islamic view that stems from the teachings of the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia. Among its requirements are bans on smoking and alcohol consumption, non-Islamic music, movies and dancing, and dress code restrictions. The punishments for non-cooperation included public whippings, crucifixions, and limb amputations. ISIS also propagates discrimination and persecution of members of minority religious groups such as Christians and the Shia. Owing to the extreme violence dispensed by ISIS fanatics on both Islamic and non-Islamic sects, the AQI distanced themselves from the group. The success of ISIS in accumulating organized militia attacks springs from the tactical knowledge possessed by the Ba’athist commanders of the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
Economic benefits of the Crusades
The economic benefits of the crusades accrued to individuals, the European kingdoms, and the church. At the individual level, crusaders collected wealth from the villages and towns that they plundered while on their way to Jerusalem. Other rewards included tax releases, debt forfeiture, and indulgence. The Crusaders donated part of the wealth to the church as payment for the forgiveness of their sins. After capturing Jerusalem, the crusaders established four states that opened up the trade routes to Asia between the crusaders and the Italian cities such as Venice and Pisa. During this period, the Muslims were quite advanced in terms of scientific and commercial knowledge. The merchant crusaders brought back this knowledge to Europe and triggered the Renaissance period. Commercial activities between the merchants and the Muslims led to the urbanization of European cities and the rise of the middle class. Goods such as textiles, silk, perfumes, precious stones and unique spices found their way into Europe. The crusades also broke down feudalism by increasing the power and wealth of the kings. Much of the property and estates of the noblemen who left for the crusades returned to the crown after their death in the during the crusades. As the kingdoms became wealthy, the church’s revenues also increased accordingly from the significant donations that the rich kings made to the church. In return, the church supported and legitimized the rule of the kings in their respective jurisdictions. Therefore, the crusades were a primary tool for the Catholic Church to accumulate the wealth that it used to build income streams such as hospitals, schools and charities that still generate revenue today. For instance, an investigation conducted by the Economist in 2012 regarding the financial status of the Catholic Church in America revealed that the institution spends about $170 billion annually (Yglesias, 2013).
Economic benefits of ISIS
The motivations behind the dealings of ISIS lie with the financial gains that the group obtains from its organized crime activities. These profits finance its terrorist activities such as training, spying and intelligence, regional and global communication networks, payment of foot soldiers and buying ammunition. Currently, ISIS commands the wealth of more than $2 billion. Most of this revenue comes from the few oil fields it controls in northern Iraq and Syria. ISIS covets the al-Sham region in Syria because of its natural resources such as oil and natural gas. By managing these resources, ISIS intends to obtain a bargaining tool in the global arena since the majority of countries depend on the oil from the region. ISIS sells the crude oil at extremely low discounts in the black market. In addition, the current surge in the demand for clean fuel for both domestic homes and industrial plants makes natural gas a precious commodity. The natural gas pipelines originating in the al-Sham region of Syria to other parts of the country are a valuable source of revenue. Furthermore, the al-sham region has fertile lands that support large-scale farming. Thus, ISIS stands to benefit from the agricultural export proceeds. In summary, ISIS will boost its profits significantly by exporting oil, natural gas, and agricultural products. This makes it a formidable force in the international scene.
ISIS uses the revenues obtained from the sale of oil and natural gas to pay high salaries to its foot soldiers that amount to about $400 every month. This well-paid income, coupled with the high rate of unemployment in many countries makes many youths open to terrorist recruitments. Furthermore, the income attracts the highly educated members of society seeking for high paying jobs that are scarce in their domestic countries. Moreover, these foreigners provide a fertile ground for the fundamentalist Islamic religion to spread to other parts of the world when they return to their respective homelands with the militia training. For instance, there are about “7,000 Saudi nationals” fighting for ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The Saudi Arabian government enacted the "Royal Decree 44” in February last year to curb overseas fighting of its citizens by outlawing such act. Other critics argue that private companies in the U.S. also benefit from the ongoing ISIS terror activities by securing tenders from the U.S. federal government to handle military logistics in terrorist-prone zones. Since the main objective of these companies is making profit, they tend to underestimate their budgets deliberately in a bid to secure the military tenders. The underestimation results in a momentary ceasefire by the U.S. army in war zones as they await more supplies. Such lapses in combat give terrorist organizations such as ISIS time to recoup and change their tactics, making it more difficult to defeat them.
Economic model: monopolist, rent-seeking model
According to Adam Smith, religious organizations are the firms, religious policy is the economic good, and religion is the market. Organizations sell salvation to their members by providing moral rules that guide behavior. They support the rules through the belief in heaven and hell, and the concept of an omnipresent being that doles out punishments and rewards based on disobedience and observance respectively. Where the church has the backing of the political authorities, the organization becomes a monopoly religion. The church then uses state agencies to enforce adherence by subjecting competing religious groups to harsh penalties that hamper their existence in the religious market. Existing as a monopoly, the religious organization removes monopoly rent from its consumers by imposing stringent moral rules, which offer greater opportunities for rent collection. Rent-seeking activities fall into three main categories: welfare provision, orthodox enforcement, and limit pricing. Welfare provision depends on doctrinal innovations such as auricular confessions and indulgence that offer the church the opportunity to charge discriminatory pricing. Individuals confess their sins to the clergy in private. After the confession, the clergy prescribes varying amounts of tithes or donations that individuals should contribute to the church so that their sins can be forgiven. The bigger the perceived sin, the higher the rent exacted. Limit pricing mainly targets competing market entrants by signaling to them that they stand to lose by entering the market. Churches deter their competitors through actions such as the construction and beautification of humongous places of worship. Believers are more likely to flock to such buildings than those with smaller structures. The bigger the congregation, the more the rent extracted by churches. Lastly, Orthodox enforcement methods include instituting mandatory charges for specific spiritual activities such as weddings or funeral services. Where the church is a monopoly and has the backing of the political class, the minority churches are forced to pay fines or taxes in order to conduct their religious activities within the country or state.
The Crusades
The Roman Catholic Church became a state-sponsored monopoly religion after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the state. In order to strengthen its monopoly position, the Church outlawed paganism, leading to the persecution of non-Christians. As such, Pope Urban II was able to sway the knights into forming the crusades. The Church got rent by offering the crusaders spiritual rewards such as indulgence in return for a share of their loot. The main economic good of the Catholic Church was the mediation on the believer’s behalf with a divine being. Mediation is a “purely private good” that the church uses to charge differential prices by examining the level of the confessor’s sins. The greater the perceived sin, the greater the rent. The Crusaders committed grave crimes during their missions that got enormous rents, which the ministry took in exchange for mediating on behalf of the sinners with the creator. The church also employed orthodox enforcement by authorizing the murder of all the Jews and Muslims living in Jerusalem during the first crusade. As a result, the church’s credibility as a religious institution was damaged because of the noticed relaxation of the moral standards promoted by the church. In economics, the reputation of an institution or a firm generates revenue in the form of goodwill. Any dent in reputation, therefore, erodes the trust that consumers have in the firm. This leads to brand switching as they seek alternative firms to satisfy their needs. This analogy applies to the Catholic Church after the crusades. The wanton killing and looting sanctioned by the church eroded the trust and goodwill of its believers, thus diminishing its rent as Christians sought alternative churches. As a result, various groups broke away from the Catholic Church to form other sects such as the Anglican Church. Hence, the more the divisions, the lower the rent that accrues to individual churches.
ISIS
The fundamentalist Islamic view of the ISIS is deeply rooted in the Wahhabi teachings that began in Saudi Arabia in the eighteenth century. Political loyalty and faithfulness then became a religious obligation that guaranteed believers redemption after death. The Wahhabi opposed the polytheistic practices of the Shia because they perverted the original Islamic teachings. Being a Sunna-dominated movement, the followers of the Wahhabi subjected the Shia to orthodox enforcement methods such as harm, whippings, elimination of wealth, and limb amputation. To maintain its monopoly position, the Wahhabi set harsh moral codes such as banning alcoholism and non-Islamic music. Any violation of the codes exacted penalties in the form of substantial fines that contributed to the rent of the movement. The movement also obtained rent by selling illegal drugs on the streets and imposing taxes on minority religions. ISIS still uses such tactics to extort money from the Shia and Christians living in its territory. The ultimate aim of the terrorist organization is to establish an Islamic state that holds to the close-minded interpretation of the Quran and Sunni teachings. By adopting such rent-seeking behavior, ISIS is likely to experience the same setbacks as the Catholic Church. Despite the existence of pertinent grievances that ISIS aimed at addressing, the exaction of rent through brutal initiatives will dent the reputation of the organization. As a result, some of the officials and followers will break ranks with the group, leading to a reduction of its rent opportunities.
Conclusion
Political and religious figures use religion to influence individuals for their selfish benefits. An alliance of the two key social institutions makes monopolies of religious organizations while legitimizing the political authority of the ruling class. The Catholic Church used the crusades to collect wealth by selling forgiveness for murders committed by Crusaders during their voyages. The downside of the crusades was, however, terrible such as the death of masses and the church’s loss of credibility that triggered later religious splits. ISIS, on the other hand, still enjoys a monopoly position in the territories under its control, and holds the ambition of expanding the old-school Islamic views to neighboring countries. Its rent-seeking plans are huge and bring in substantial revenues that finance its terror activities. However, the folly of a materialistic thinking will inevitably cause the downfall of ISIS, similar to that of the Catholic Church after the crusades.
References
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