Islam's urge to repeat the free market catechism suggests a hope that repetition alone will somehow make it true. Certainly, he seems unwilling to consider the possibility that inequality and poverty remain "pronounced and prolonged" precisely because attempts to address the problem are no longer listened to, except when couched in the narrow self-regarding terms of the "free" market -- a market that can offer no credible solution since it requires poverty and inequality in order to benefit those whose interests it most generously serves. (Proposing the free market as a universal panacea calls to mind a great Simpsons gag, in which half the townspeople are digging for buried money and end up stuck at the bottom of a very deep pit. On realising their predicament, a solution is discovered: "No, dig up...")