Saints of the Atlas

I've started a detailed reading of Gellner's book about the Muslim nomadic tribesmen of the high Atlas as part of my endeavour to insert myself into and counter the toxic discourse about Islam. Gellner saw Muslim societies as a genuinely viable species of modernity, analysing it alongside the other three options, Nationalism, Marxism and Capitalism. I think he'd have been appalled at the way Nationalism has risen its nasty head again, fascinated (and appalled) by Marxism's mutation in China and equally fascinated (and appalled) by capitalism's mutations too. I don't think he'd have been surprised by anything that's happening however. It's odd, given the violence of capitalist modernity, Marxist modernity and nationalist modernity that Islamic modernity is the one picked out as being beyond the pale. I wonder whether it's because it's the one form of modernity that is essentially religious and thus a counter example to the secular modernity that the other options embody. (It's not that there aren't religions in the other versions but religion there is just an option, largely privatised in the calvinist mode. There's no equivalent of a 'Bible belt' or 'fundamentalist' in Muslim modernity because the religion is the blueprint for the whole of society. Modi's India uses Hinduism as a vehicle for toxic Nationalism and isn't a religious state.)

Part 1 of my reading of Saints of the Atlas is here.

An extract: "The setting is the Berber population of the central High Atlas of Morocco, especially the groups often referred to as the Shluh. These are not a homogeneous people but a mosaic of tribes and sub tribes, organised through what Gellner repeatedly calls a segmentary lineage system. This term refers to a specific form of social organisation in which descent groups are nested within one another in a genealogical hierarchy. A lineage splits into sub lineages, which split again, producing a branching structure that is at once genealogical and political. These segments are not fixed administrative units. They are activated situationally. In one dispute, a small lineage may act as a unit. In another, several lineages may fuse into a larger segment against a common opponent. This capacity for fusion and fission is one of the central mechanisms of order in the absence of a central authority. "