Weberian questions presume modernity’s success when asking why Islam lacked developments

Evidence

The most intellectually problematic of such research questions is the “Weberian” sort, which proceeds with an inquiry, posited as self-evident, as to why a certain concept or practice “did not develop” or “failed to develop” in Islam (or anywhere else in Asia and Africa), where the governing assumption is the success of the concept or practice in modernity. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 1004

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘Weberian’ research question as a diagnostic type whose framing assumption is the superiority of modern Western development.
• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism and to the ‘why didn’t the Enlightenment happen here’ genre of historiography.
• SEED: Article angle: how the form of a research question smuggles in its own answer — asking ‘why didn’t X develop’ presupposes X should have.