New Chains

A respected job can offer security and status while leaving little room to question its demands. What does freedom mean when refusing an instruction threatens the life built around the next salary?

In New Chains, Mamoon Musa examines the pressures shaping professional life in Arab societies: public authority, education, money, time, identity, fear and digital technology. The argument follows the decisions through which dependence is maintained, including the authority professionals themselves exercise over others.

Drawing on critical social theory, Ibn Khaldun and an Islamic ethical reading of responsibility, the book asks where power sits, whose work sustains it and what would make it answerable. Differences in citizenship, wealth, gender, care duties and protection shape the choices available.

The closing guide turns criticism toward practical questions: what must be protected, who can change a demand, what a change would cost and how people can share responsibility. Institutional examples examine a member's vote at work, participation in public spending and support for childcare.

For readers who value their expertise yet question the terms under which it is used, New Chains offers a framework for examining work, responsibility and the cost of saying no.