Islam, capitalism and the Weber theses.

The article presents a study into Weber's view of Islam, the author have attempted to show that one can plausibly perceive four different theses in Weber's sociology of civilizations. On the basis of contemporary research and theoretical discussion, three theses can be dismissed as either false or theoretically weak. The fourth thesis is that Islam declined and was eventually forced into economic dependence on Europe because it could not solve an inherent weakness in what Weber called "sultanism." In this final perspective, Islamic beliefs are still treated as influential, but the presence of these beliefs rather than other beliefs is explained by the social and economic structure of patrimonialism. When Muslim reformers came to understand their own economic decline, they often employed theories of ascetic motivation, but this fact cannot be taken as evidence that asceticism is a necessary aspect of capitalist development. The ideology of hard work in modern Islam was very largely a colonial importation.