Why Muslims might blame others more when something goes wrong (and claim credit for when something succeeds)

Muslims will very seldom acknowledge their mistakes. I heard that in pure Urdu there is no sentence for “I’m sorry I’m late.” There is only “I’m sorry lateness happened.” It’s something that just happened, it’s external, not my fault.

The reason is, when Muslims acknowledge a sin, or something wrong, they believe it will be counted against them at the day of judgement. If you don’t acknowledge it, it’s fine.

Inshala world view also effects this blaming. Inshala means “if God wills.” When talking about something that will happen tomorrow, they say Inshala, giving respect to God for being the sole authority on making this happen in the future. However, this is sometimes abused to escape their own responsibilities. This world view says “it’s not up to me to make things happen, I will do my best, but God may intervene.” In other words, Muslims have a much greater external locus of control than Westerners. Of course, from the economic point of view, this might lead to less value creation, but thinking that internal locus of control is somehow better is also a result of western history.

Think 1500's. The average person in Europe did not own property, the idea of individualism was still not developed, Martin Luther was yet to translate the bible from latin for the average person, and French revolution was very far off. Locus of control was internal because it was a agricultural society relying on weather (external conditions) for value creation. They viewed themselves as a family or as a part of a larger community, not as individuals.

Fast forward to this day and individualism has gone too far. With the burst of the knoweldge economy, especially in the US, now value can be created just by ideas. Locus of control is crazy internal. “Man can do anything” is the spirit. This is also a bubble of its own as more than half the world is unable to bring themselves out of poverty. Sure the west can create things, but they have never seen the immense obstacles, the lack of capital, the harsh external conditions faced by the third world.

There needs to be a balance between these two world views of internal and external locus of control. Man is not God, but yet, it’s not only up to God to do anything.

But back to Muslims, or maybe just the Pakistanis.

I was amazed when I first came because when something wasn’t done at work, they would just blame their subordinates, even if it wasn’t the subordinates fault giving top management inaccurate picture of the situation.

Or, they will blame the partner/dealer/distributor for not replying to their email. At first, I thought these were a few isolated cases of people who were more selfish than others.

However, I’ve seen too many who are similar. For example, when playing football, if a pass was too fast that the other team mate was unable to stop it, both will blame the other person. And this happens through out the whole game. When it’s maybe 50% passers fault, and 50% receivers fault, they will try to make it 100% the other persons fault. And this, throughout the whole game, saying that this was that teams foul, this teams foul etc.

For me, having received a rather western education where honesty was a virtue to be sought after, this seems immoral. But, if you look at their theology, their save face culture etc. It is understandable. For whatever the culture, you should take them at face value, take them for who they are rather than viewing them through your world view or lens.