CRISIS
OF FAITH IN THE MUSLIM
WORLD PART 1: Statistical
evidence By Spengler
Given the prominence of what Westerners
call "Islamic fundamentalism", it seems odd to
speak of a crisis of faith in the Islamic world.
Several authors, including George Weigel [1] and
Phillip Longman [2], support my contention that
death of religious faith in Western Europe
underlies its demographic decline. In slower
motion, Islam faces a crisis of faith that will
bring about a demographic catastrophe in the
middle of the present century. I have called
attention to the disturbing demographics of Islam
in the past (The demographics of radical
Islam, August 23), and here will offer
evidence that the source of its demographic
troubles is to be found in a failure of faith.
Striking statistical evidence supports
this conclusion, which I
shall
present below. A wide range of fertility rates
characterizes the Islamic world. Most of the
variation in fertility can be explained by a
single factor, namely, literacy: as Muslims (and
especially Muslim women) learn to read, they drift
away from traditional faith. The birthrate drops
in consequence.
Radical Islam should be
interpreted as a cry of despair in the face of the
ineluctable decline of Islamic society. Read
carefully, the leading Islamists say precisely
this. At the close of the 19th century the Ottoman
Empire was the sick man of Europe, and its former
territories today comprise the incurables ward of
geopolitics. From this vantage point, America's
attempt to foist its own form of democracy on the
Islamic world seems delusional.
As I have
reported before, the demographic position of the
Islamic world has set a catastrophe in motion. It
is hard enough for rich nations to care for a
growing elderly population, but impossible for
poor nations to do so. Iran, along with most of
the Muslim world, faces a population bust that
will raise the proportion of dependent elderly in the
population to 28% in 2050, from just 7%
today.
If America faces discomfort,
and Europe faces crisis, Muslim countries face
breakdown. America now has a per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) of US$40,000 and a
diversified economy. Iran has a per capita GDP of
just $7,000 and depends on oil exports for the
state subsidies that keep its population fed and
clothed - and Iran will no longer be able to
export oil after 2020, according to some
estimates.
America can ameliorate the
impact of an aging population by raising
productivity (so that fewer workers produce more
GDP), attracting more skilled immigrants (and
increasing its tax base), and, in the worst of all
cases, tightening its belt. American life will not
come to an end if more people drive compact cars
instead of SUVs, or go camping for vacation
instead of to Disney World. But the Islamic world
is so poor that any reduction in living standards
from present levels will cause social breakdown.
In 2002, the United Nations' Arab
Development Report offered a widely-quoted
summation of the misery of the present position of
the Arab World, noting:
The average growth rate of per capita income
during the preceding 20 years in the Arab world
was only one-half of 1% per annum, worse than
anywhere but sub-Saharan Africa
One in five Arabs lives on less than $2 per
day
Fifteen percent of the Arab workforce is
unemployed, and this number could double by
2010
Only 1% of the population has a personal
computer, and only half of 1% use the Internet
Half of Arab women cannot read.
Negotiating the demographic decline of the
21st century will be treacherous for countries
that have proven their capacity to innovate and
grow. For the Islamic world, it will be
impossible. That is the root cause of Islamic
radicalism, and there is nothing that the West can
do to change it.
Among the Muslim states,
Iran has seen the future most clearly, and drawn
terrible conclusions. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad
understands that life as Iranians know it is
coming to an end, and has proposed drastic
measures commensurate with the need.
In a
program made public on August 15, Iran's new
president proposed a pre-emptive response to the
inevitable depopulation of rural Iran. He plans to
reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only
10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians out of a
population of 70 million. In relative terms, that
would be the biggest population transfer in
history, dwarfing Joseph Stalin's collectivization
campaign of the late 1920s.
A generation
hence, Iran will not have the resources to provide
infrastructure for more than 50,000 rural villages
inhabited mainly by elderly and infirm peasants.
In response, Iran will undertake the biggest
exercise in social engineering in recorded
history, excepting perhaps Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge.
America's fertility rate -
the average number of children per woman - has stabilized at
just around the replacement level. That is why
America's elderly dependency ratio will stabilize
around 2030. But the fertility rate of the Muslim
world is falling much faster.
In the
case of Iran, Algeria and many other Muslim
countries, the fertility rate in 2050 is expected
to fall below two children per woman. Replacement
is 2.1. Even Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Islamic
conservatism, will show a fertility rate below the
replacement level, according to UN projections. I
think the UN estimates err on the high side.
Modernization is likely to push fertility down
further than the demographers now
calculate.
What is killing the fertility
rate in the Muslim world? There really is no such thing as a
"Muslim" fertility rate, but rather a wide
spectrum of fertility rates that express different
degrees of modernization. Where traditional
conditions prevail, characterized by high rates of
illiteracy (and especially female illiteracy) the
fertility rate remains at the top of the world's
rankings.
But where the modern world
encroaches, fertility rates are plummeting to
levels comparable to the industrial world. No
single measure of modernization captures this
transformation, but the literacy rate alone
explains most of the difference in fertility rates
among Muslim countries. Among the 34 largest Arab
countries, just one factor,
namely the difference in literacy rates, explains
60% of the difference in the population growth
rate in 2005.
The population of Somalia,
where only a quarter of adults can read, is
growing at an enormous 4% per year. At that rate,
the number of Somalis will double in just 18
years. But in Algeria, where 62% of adults can
read, the population growth rate is only 1.4% per
year. At that rate it would take 50 years for the
population to double. Qatar, with a literacy rate
close to 80%, has a population growth rate of just
1.2%.
elderly in the
population to 28% in 2050, from just 7%
today. 
- has stabilized at
just around the replacement level. That is why
America's elderly dependency ratio will stabilize
around 2030. But the fertility rate of the Muslim
world is falling much faster. 
no such thing as a
"Muslim" fertility rate, but rather a wide
spectrum of fertility rates that express different
degrees of modernization. Where traditional
conditions prevail, characterized by high rates of
illiteracy (and especially female illiteracy) the
fertility rate remains at the top of the world's
rankings. 
just one factor,
namely the difference in literacy rates, explains
60% of the difference in the population growth
rate in 2005. 
