Paper short abstract:

What brings camels, Shari'a and insurance market together? Showing how dwindling population of camels is contributing to the bankruptcy of insurance companies in Iran, this paper reveals an unlikely relation which points to the interdependency of human and non-human life forms in the Middle East.

Paper long abstract:

The looming threat of bankruptcy is prompting insurance companies in Iran to invest in camel breeding as the most viable method to lower the soaring price of life insurance. Bound to observe Shari'a, insurance companies have to pay the state-sanctioned amount to cover the loss of a life in car accidents— the value of which is determined by clerics, varies each year, and it is tantamount to the average annual market price of one hundred young healthy camels. Two issues in recent years have factored in the skyrocketing price of life insurance and imminent bankruptcy of insurance companies: For the past three decades, Iran has been at the top of the international table for deadly car accidents, thanks to poor road infrastructure and low quality of nationally produced cars. Coincident with a surging number of motorway deaths, long-term droughts and dramatic floods have dwindled the number of camels in the country, thus increasing the market value of camels. Insurance companies have repeatedly asked Islamic authorities to change camels as the benchmark for measuring the value of human life. Their requests, however, have been to no avail. Locating the value of life at the intersection of nature, jurisprudence, and market, I show how detrimental impacts of environmental changes have intensified the enduring clash of two calculative logics of market and religion. Consequently, I illustrate the interdependency of life forms—human and non-human— in an Islamic country, revealing new kind of relationalities in the Middle East.