Weber held that Islam lacked all conditions for capitalist modernity.

Evidence

Weber used a very dualistic model which contrasted Islam with western Europe in terms of modern social development. For Weber, the essential conditions for the transition to capitalism and modernity were: (a) ascetic forms of religion, (b) rational forms of law, (c) free labor, and (d) the growth of cities. All these, in his view, were missing from Islam, which he represented as a “mosaic” of tribes and groups, never cohering into a proper social system but existing under a despotic rule which absorbed social conflicts in an endlessly repeating cycle of factional struggles, with Islam as its monolithic religion. Power and privilege, Weber believed, had been kept within, and rotated between, the ruling Islamic families, who merely syphoned off the wealth through taxation. He called this a “patrimonial” or “prebendary” form of authority. Unlike feudalism, it did not provide the preconditions for capitalist accumulation and growth. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 673

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures Weber’s ‘patrimonial/prebendary authority’ concept as applied to Islam — key theoretical vocabulary.
• XREF: Connects to the classical modernization-theory claim that Islam is incompatible with modernity — a central trope the Islamophobia field works against.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how Weber’s ‘rational’ aspects relate to the ‘West and the Rest’ discourse Hall traced in earlier chapters.