Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that Max Weber’s assumption of greater calculability brought about by formal legal rationality is just plain wrong. It shows that in undertaking to study reformist groups and the search for “functional equivalents” to the Protestant ethic, the researcher needs to attend to the sequence of events, and thereby not fall prey to taking the conjunction of economic interests and religious innovation as cause and effect. The book highlights the conceptual framework implicit in Weber’s general study of the world religions, while it assembles many of Weber’s comments on Islam and its social structure. It offers some important insights into the relationship between Islamic fundamentalism, charismatic leadership, and worldly asceticism. The book discusses a doctrinal similarity in the belief in an inscrutable transcendent God, one who also predestined all things.