Traditional Islamic central power suppressed trust-bearing groups but could not destroy them

Evidence

The religious class [in Islam] did not pose the sort of challenge to temporal authority that the religious hierarchy presided over by the pope did to emperors and kings in medieval and early modern Europe. The dispersal of religious authority in Islam therefore normally prevented a direct clash between temporal and religious power, as happened in medieval Christendom… . It also helped preclude the establishment of a single orthodoxy that, in alliance with the state, could suppress all dissenting tendencies and oppress their followers, as happened in Christian Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. Wars of religion and persecution of “heretical” sects were therefore infrequent in Islamdom in contrast to Christendom. At the same time, it promoted the creation of distinct religious and political spheres that by and large respected each other’s autonomy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 296 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Conclusions 1, 2, and 3 together imply that if anything will do by itself it will have to be non-egoistic micro-motivation. This will presumably have to be something like ‘thick trust’ - reliance on and between a group of persons in terms of their known dispositions, personal relations, and so on. It is not easy to see how this could be extended beyond a very small society. The only apparent way of taking it beyond that is to identify a particular set of people, a government or elite group, in whom thick trust is invested, and whose activities, example, or regulation serve to sustain cooperative activities throughout the society; but if this is conceivable at all, I find it impossible to see how such a structure could be the basis of our arrangements without an arrant degree of traditionalist or charismatic mystification. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 219 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Dispersed religious authority in Islam prevented church-state clashes — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 296; Religious claims overstated the unity of religion and politics in Islam — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 294; Dominant powers benefit from engineering their subjects’ inability to trust (+5 more)

Related

• Islamic central power tolerated urban untrusting populations but opposed coherent rural groups (similarity 0.85)
• Dispersed religious authority in Islam prevented church-state clashes (similarity 0.85)
• Muslim empires separated religious from political authority from their start. (similarity 0.80)
• Islamic governance once rested on tribal-group trust. (similarity 0.80)
• A religion’s violence depends on context, not inherent character (similarity 0.80)
• Classic Islamic order rested on tribal trust plus urban fear plus shared revelation (similarity 0.79)
• Christian institutions constructed the Muslim enemy to maintain their own power. (similarity 0.78)
• Early Islamic empire required separating clerical from political authority (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Dispersed religious authority in Islam prevented church-state clashes #corroborates (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 296
• Thick trust cannot extend beyond small groups except via mystified elite authority #expands (0.80) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 219
• Religious claims overstated the unity of religion and politics in Islam #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 294
• Dominant powers benefit from engineering their subjects’ inability to trust #expands (0.75)
• Trust is sustained by sanctions of relational withdrawal or community shunning #complicates (0.75)
• Christian institutions constructed the Muslim enemy to maintain their own power. #expands (0.72)
• Church institutional power disciplined believers into accepting the Muslim monster #expands (0.72)