Magic and Religion in North Africa

Thus, in studying Muslim institutions, we must investigate the extent to which they owe their form to previous civilizations versus the influence of Islam itself. A remark is necessary here: Islam has extended across diverse geographical territories and among a multitude of highly disparate peoples. Consequently, it has encountered differing organizations, races, and environments during its expansion. How did it behave under these varying conditions? This question implicitly poses the problem of the influence of environment and race on a society. We know this problem has been resolved in different ways: some (Montesquieu’s climate, Ratzel’s tellurisme theory that human development is conditioned by the earth) have insisted above all on the influence of physical factors; others, especially in our era, have believed that race was the predominant element in the organization of a society (Gobineau, Taine’s psycho-physiological environment, Lapouge and Ammon’s anthroposociology). It is certain that, at the origin of society, the planetary environment and race have a predominant influence on social organization(1), but the specific property of civilization is precisely to free itself from physical fetters: human industry has no other goal. Furthermore, we are beginning to admit that the social environment is not only not strictly conditioned by race, but that it actually influences race itself(2). Therefore, when a

(1) On this question of anthropogeography, consult the references provided by Mauss, Studies of Social Morphology, in Année Sociologique, 9th year, pp. 41-48, notes.
(2) See the facts presented by Ripley, The Races of Europe, London, 1900.