Since October 7th and its aftermath, the hopes of an economically and securely viable Middle East that the Abraham Accords and the ascendency of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations had recently fostered were put under their first stress test. Indeed, it can be argued that the entire strategic logic of the Iranian ‘Axis of Resistance’ is to disrupt such a process of regional meta-forming away from the intrigue of Islamism, Jihadism, and revolutionary modernism towards a conscious campaign of enchantment with modernism embodied in places like Hong Kong, Shanghai, and regionally in Dubai. These events mark another episode of the recent ideological struggle between the two dominant ideologies of the Middle East today, the materialism of Dubai and the materialism of Jihad.
There is nothing like the sight of the skyline of Dubai or Shanghai or a stroll in a shopping mall in Riyadh to dispel one of Europe’s most influential modern myths, the spirituality of the East versus the materialism of the West. The idea, one of the major motifs of the Romanticist era and a wellspring of a whole universe of aesthetic sensibilities has dominated so much of our modern identity and self-image that it has become a truism. It dreams of the East that awakens to the soft chants of spirituality and calls to prayers, where ancient temples stand as guardians of time-honored traditions, and the air carries whispers of wisdom passed down through generations. In its stark contrast, it either celebrates or condemns the West that pulses with the vibrant beat of material progress: towering skyscrapers reach for the heavens, not in search of enlightenment, but as monuments to achievement and ambition. The bustling streets, alive with the relentless pursuit of innovation, mirror a society that measures success in tangible milestones and worldly comforts. This juxtaposition paints a vivid tableau of two worlds—where the East's serene contemplation of the infinite and latent meets the West's ceaseless quest for the finite and the manifest.
This profound theme from the Romantic era provided a framework for generations of European thinkers and artists to develop, express, debate, elevate, criticize, showcase, create, and explore various sensibilities and forms of rationality. However, the accuracy of this East-West dichotomy is now highly questionable. The swift dominance of European materialism over the developing world, manifested through both capitalism and Marxism, challenges the notion that materialism is purely a Western trait. Indeed, visitors from New York or Chicago might find themselves feeling as though they've stepped out from the developing world upon visiting certain cities in the Near and Far East.
If anything, in the last century, it was the West that was the source of modern religiosity and spiritualism, while the East of China, India, and Arab Gulf states became the capitals of the basis of modern material existence: manufacturing, information technology, energy production, and finance. It was in Western cities that modern forms of New Age occultism and new forms of religiosity centered on ecological apocalypticism, eroticism, and social activism were born. The new Western identities, basically religious narratives of race, gay, minority, color, etc., are the universal paradigm among middle-class urban people globally. Traditional stories of split seas and virgin births written by Middle Eastern men are no longer the primary source of identity for most educated men and women but stories written by Edward Said, Franz Fanon, Judith Butler, Kimberle Crenshaw, Marx, etc. It is in the West today, not in the East, where we can find the modern version of religious wars, gnosticism, and campaign for the defense of the sacred.
In the Middle East, however, the struggle is not between competing religions or rival sacred but between rival materialist philosophies: the first of economic and social liberalism, which has its origins in capitalism albeit modified for local conditions, and revolutionary mass economic and social control and austere conformism and which has its origins in revolutionary socialism. The former materialism is exemplified by the GCC’s efforts to follow in the footsteps of Dubai, the latter one by Islamism and Jihadist spearheaded by Iran and Sunni radicals.
The fact that Islamism was the outcome of a long process of late 19th and 20th-century materialization of Islam has been largely missed by most, and even so, the fact that Jihadism was even a further materialization. Arab Nationalism, as a transient ideology, maintained a mystified ideological structure centered around a spiritual protagonist, Arabness, whose self-fulfillment was the mystical telos of its Hegelian saga. “Arabism is my religion” was the motto of Constantin Zureiq, Sati’ al-Husari, and Michel Aflaq, the founders of Arab Nationalism. They all maintained that Arab Nationalism was a complex made of the spiritual content of Arabness and the vitality of Islam (notice the inverted conception). Subsequently, Islamism did away with the spiritual content and absolutized the vitality. Thus, the relation of Islamism to Arab Nationalism is analogous, be it with qualifications, to that of Marx to Hegel: a thorough materialization and concretization of a mystical philosophical system. Every spiritual practice and dictum, struggle, submission to the deity, self-sacrifice, and up to the cosmological hierarchy of Islamic theology were materialized to the most extreme extent (practically a re-paganization of Abrahamic religions), giving birth to political crusades to bring the world into direct physical submission through political conspiracism, Jihad, murder, and suicide. Its materialism is a rationality of total and final control and power over both life and death. What Islamism and Jihadism offer, both in their Iranian and Arab variations, are closely related variants of materialist totalitarianism varying only in the degree of the same temperament.
The other materialism of Saudi 2030 and UAE 2031 is materialism not of thought but of desire. It does not seek the material reproduction of a mental scheme or rational organization of the world but the organization of the material world through ambition, achievement, and interest. Schemes and mental organizations are closed systems of rigid and static forms that are more likely to lead to material decay than growth. Ambition and interest are dynamic, open, and inviting and feed on constant renewal, addition, and exploration. Its materialism is an unceasingly instrumental rationality for the sake of continuous growth. It is the rationality of the dynamic and the transient. Thus, its inescapable epiphenomenon is always a large measure of social liberalism and openness that allows the constant in and out flow of new and old forces and assets.
For the new generations of young Arab men and women, the choices are not many, but they are clear. What each ideology offers is a rival claim to the material world, appealing to what each bet on as the most plausible constituency and expectations. Islamist materialism appeals to the austere expectations of the hopeless and the poor, while Gulf materialism appeals to the higher expectations of the hopeful and the mobile. The materialism of the ‘Resistance’ is the magnet of the resentful and the angry, while the materialism of the materialism of the axis of ‘visions’ is the magnet of the wealthy and the capable. Yet between both, there is a large overlapping constituency of the average, urban, and middle-class young Arabs seeking a path for the future. The choice of this group is likely to determine the fate of the region.
Lastly, how will the new Western religiosity of de-growth, ecological apocalypticism, and social messianism interact with the struggle between Middle Eastern materialisms? The answer might be less clear than it may seem in the first instance. Dubai materialism might seem passé at first, yet, following the lead of American corporatism, it is actively betting on its accommodation and compromise with some form of environmental Romanticism, social hedonism, and affiliation with the Third World through patronage and moral sloganeering. On the other hand, Islamist materialism does, at the first instance, repel progressive social sensibilities yet appeal to the deep shared ideological commitment to a deconstructed, decentralized, and de-Westernized world.
Regardless of the outcome of these historical processes, a few things must be asserted: the traditional East-West dichotomy of the spiritual East versus the materialistic West is an outdated perception. The Middle East, traditionally viewed through the lens of religion and spirituality, is now a battleground for materialist ideologies, with some regions embracing modern capitalism and others pursuing a revolutionary, control-based economic and social system. Whether the region will forge a path that harmonizes these competing ideologies or deepen its ideological divides remains an open question. Yet, it is clear that the outcome will resonate far beyond its borders, challenging us to reconsider our own assumptions about materialism, progress, and the nature of the modern world itself. In navigating this complex terrain, the Middle East does not merely confront its destiny but also holds up a mirror to the world. I have no qualms about the superiority and the dominance of materialist modes of thought and behavior, and I acknowledge the ascendancy of materialism in contemporary discourse and practice, and I suggest an acceptance, or rather an outright endorsement, of its role in defining modern life.
However, for those who pursue non-materialist paths, seeking spirituality, sacred relationships, or identity narratives, I urge them to embark on their personal and spiritual journeys independently, without relying on or exploiting political or historical narratives for their purposes. It is their duty to take responsibility for their own personal journeys without the parasitic latching to politics or to history. The uncritical dependence on politics or history, on Orientalism, or being an exiled victim of imperialism by those seeking non-material fulfillment conspicuously detracts from the authenticity and integrity of their quest. Such reliance is detrimental not only to the individuals involved but also to the broader society, effectively destroying the clear understanding and appreciation of materialist and non-materialist perspectives alike. We should all advocate for a mature, responsible approach to spiritual or identity-related explorations, one that respects the autonomy of these pursuits from the domains of politics and history. We should demand a reflection on the importance of personal accountability in the search for meaning beyond the material, urging individuals to contribute positively to a non-dogmatic appreciation of human experience. Ultimately, it is only appreciation and not understanding that we can and should hope for.
The early Muslim empires were forged at a time when the rest of Eurasia was in the toilet and the Sultans could easily attract talent from these places despite higher taxes and some lose notion of tolerance.
In that sense modern Dubai is just that. It is dependent on South and Southeast having a hard working and talented 5% that can't realise their potential in their own homeland and hence need to pay tribute to a rentier state. Despite all the outward aesthetics, the Arab population in Dubai are still the same race of worthless filth that populates the rest of the region.