ABSTRACT
Bypassing a long tradition of Oriental studies, which examined whether the prophet of Islam had been sincere or merely a hypocrite, Weber enquired into the teachings of Mohammed in accordance with universalistic criteria. The prophet is also different from the magician. Both of them act on the basis of personal gift, but the magician lacks the divine revelation, the personal mission and the ethical doctrine. Mohammed is first and foremost an ethical prophet. The ethical prophecy or the mission is underlined by the fact that a holder of religious salvation acts in the name of an abstract or concrete God and through consequence calls for obedience as an ethical duty. Each religion comprises a typical way of life carried by specific social strata that in their turn render to this conduct a practical orientation.
