The Medinans had come a long way in eight years. They had acceded to a more centralized authority to help resolve their conflicts, but in doing so they had started the process of state formation and got onto the slippery slope. They never got off it. Muhammad was engaged in a state-building project; part of his objective was to centralize authority in his and his followers’ hands, and in the process transform not just conflict resolution but the overall organization of society, its norms, its customs. He succeeded brilliantly. In less than a decade, he created the seeds of a powerful Islamic state, a giant pan–Middle Eastern empire and a new impressive civilization.
What’s Your Edge?
The birth of Islam is an example of what anthropologists call “pristine state formation”—the building of political hierarchy and some type of centralized authority where none existed before. It also illustrates the critical issues and difficulties associated with this.
The most important one, which we already highlighted in the previous chapter, is the slippery slope. The reason why centralized authority doesn’t arise easily in many stateless societies is because these societies have developed norms and practices not just to control conflict, but also to prevent anybody from getting too strong. Once an individual or group manages to increase their power sufficiently to be able to adjudicate conflicts and provide security against major threats, it is difficult to stop them from getting even more power and start telling others what to do in every sphere of their lives. This is exactly what happened in Medina. The Medinans thought they could set up a system to redress some of the defects of not having a state, without submitting wholesale to the authority of a state or a charismatic, powerful leader. They failed. Several other societies starting off without centralized authority have similarly failed, sliding down the slippery slope toward a dominating Leviathan.
So why do the norms and the other controls that such societies have developed sometimes fail to rein in state builders? To start with, there is what the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche dubbed the “will to power”—the desire of men (and sometimes women) and groups to increase their power and authority over others, even if the norms are against it. For this reason, even in the most harmonious-looking stateless societies, there will be upstart individuals wishing to acquire more power, more wealth, and greater ability to dominate others. There will also be individuals and groups wishing to obtain more power because they have a vision of reorganizing society in a different manner. Many of these upstarts will be prevented from achieving their objectives by the prevailing norms and the actions of others in their societies, and yet some will succeed.
Would-be state builders are more likely to succeed and emasculate the norms meant to restrain them if they have an “edge”—something special, making it possible for them to overcome the barriers in their way. For Muhammad, the edge came from religion. He had a religious ideology that gave him a legitimate authority in his conflict resolution role and also afforded him great influence over his followers, which he used to found a new community. Once unleashed, this religious ideology created an unstoppable drive toward more centralized authority.
Another powerful edge is organizational, emanating from the ability of a leader to forge new coalitions or more effective organizations to exercise greater command or military force, a possibility illustrated by the formation of the Zulu state in Southern Africa, which we turn to next. Yet another possibility, which we discuss a little later in this chapter, is a technological edge, exemplified by the successful state-building project of King Kamehameha of Hawaii, which heavily relied on his use of guns, a military technology his enemies did not have access to. In all of these cases, personal charisma and other sources of legitimacy, for example, resulting from lineage, past exemplary or heroic behavior, or simply a force of personality, help as well.
A final important feature of many examples of pristine state formation illustrated by Muhammad’s rise is the reorganization of society following the emergence of political hierarchy. As we saw in the previous chapter, societies without centralized authority are typically organized by a complex of norms that regulate and control conflict—and in fact every aspect of people’s lives. Once the process of state formation is under way, state builders have an incentive to destroy these norms or at the very least transform them to serve their own objectives. This is not necessarily because they want to relax the cage of norms and unleash liberty, but because the norms that restrain and limit political hierarchy are standing in their way to greater power. In Muhammad’s case, an important target was to supplant the kin-based relations prevailing in Medina and Mecca, which he could successfully do because his religious teachings elevated a new community over kin. For Shaka, as we’ll next see, the target was the authority of witch doctors.
The Horns of the Buffalo
In his memoirs, British officer Horace Smith-Dorrien recalled the events of January 22, 1879:
At about 12 a.m. the Zulus … again showed in large numbers, coming down into the plain over the hills with great boldness, and our guns and rifles were pretty busy for some time … It was difficult to see exactly what was going on, but firing was heavy. It was evident now that the Zulus were in great force, for they could be seen extending (i.e. throwing out their horns) away across the plain to the southeast, apparently working towards the right rear of the camp.
Smith-Dorrien was a member of an expeditionary force under Frederic Thesiger, Lord Chelmsford, that was sent into Zululand, now part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa (which is shown in Map 5). Chelmsford’s force was the vanguard of an expanding colonial empire whose aim was to eliminate the independent Zulu state, then ruled by King Cetshwayo. The king’s response to the British invasion was simple. He told his army:
March slowly, attack at dawn and eat up the red soldiers.
That’s what they did on January 22. Chelmsford made the mistake of dividing his force, leaving about 1,300 soldiers, mostly members of the 24th Regiment of Foot, and two artillery pieces camped at the feet of the rock of Isandlwana. Overconfident and underprepared, the red soldiers faced an army of 20,000 Zulu warriors who in the previous sixty years had cut out and consolidated a huge state in Southern Africa. So large was the Zulu state that it had already sent shock waves through the region, into modern-day Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (see Map 5).
Smith-Dorrien recorded:
The advancing Zulus’ line … was a marvellous sight, line upon line of men in slightly extended order, one behind the other, firing as they came along, for a few of them had firearms, bearing all before them. The rocket battery, apparently then only a mile to our front, was firing, and suddenly it ceased, and presently we saw the remnants of Durnford’s force, mostly mounted Basutos, galloping back to the right of our position. What had actually happened I don’t think we ever shall know accurately. The ground was intersected with “dongas,” and in them Russell with his rocket battery was caught, and none escaped to tell the tale. I heard later that Durnford, who was a gallant leader, actually reached the camp and fell there fighting.
By the end of the day the British force had been wiped out. Smith-Dorrien escaped because of his dark blue officer’s uniform. The Zulu soldiers had been told not to kill people in black because they were civilians, possibly priests. Just a few others lived to tell the tale and witness the greatest military defeat suffered by the British in their colonization of Africa.