**9. Conclusions**

A recent study conducted by the Da'wah Academy on vaccine resistance among Muslims in Nigeria reveals twenty-one distinct causes that may be aggregated into two categories: complete trust in God versus a trust deficit in government, heavily weighted toward the latter. Heeding some guidance which the survey illuminates, namely, that there is nothing essential about Islamic theology given to resisting sensible public health initiatives, this paper has offered a range of Muslim perspectives on how responses to COVID-19 might be grounded in Islamic sources: trust in science; dissent from the mainstream; absolute reliance on God; and respect for authority. In a world that requires global cooperation, how can public policy deal with such complexity? Blanket prescriptions are inadequate. Good governance requires identifying each objection by first understanding the worldview that sustains it: "evidence-based misinformation interventions" (Green et al. 2023). Evidence from Nigeria and beyond highlights the importance of religious literacy for effective interventions.

Human beings are complex creatures. The future is impossible to predict. The past has taught us enough at least to make sense of where we are, even as we struggle to contemplate where to go from here. In his final book, *Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?*, Martin Luther King, Jr. likens the human condition to that of a widely dispersed family that inherits a house in which they must learn to live together (King 2010, p. 177). With a simple stroke of the pen, King helped us understand through metaphor and story. A home is made of individuals who are not the same, but they cooperate and compromise nonetheless, for they must, after all, come to terms with the fact that they are "caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny" (King 1963).

People across the globe need at least enough political overlap across their disparate worldviews to function as a family. Absolute individual freedom is a recipe for anarchy. For a world with existential crises requiring global cooperation, anarchy, in turn, is a recipe for disaster. New and more nimble political models are needed which allow societies to pivot between the poles of freedom and cooperation, between primacy of individuals and compromise for the sake of the collective, in order to respond to the challenges of particular moments. Instead of a false choice between "autocracy and democracy," the focus of the conversation should be on wellbeing. "[J]ust thinking in the old categories of democracies versus autocracies misses all the new challenges that our institutions have to face today," argues Jean-Marie Guéhenno. (Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs n.d.). Islamic thought offers one framework to balance the tension by encouraging dissent while requiring obedience, so long as the trust deficit in public institutions remains below a critical threshold. Beyond that threshold, the most likely remaining choice might just be between tyranny and anarchy.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

**References**


Wilkinson, Olivia. 2020. *Secular and Religious Dynamics in Humanitarian Response*. New York: Routledge.

Yusuf, Hamza. 2020. A Message on the Current Crisis from Hamza Yusuf, President of Zaytuna College. *Zaytuna College*. March 18. Available online: https://zaytuna.edu/articles/presidentsmessage-march2020 (accessed on 12 December 2020). Žižek, Slavoj. 2021. *Heaven in Disorder*. New York: OR Books.

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