ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to give an example of one Muslim reform movement. He offers an interpretation of what he take to be characteristics of Islamic reformist movements in general, drawing on studies of a number of other Islamic movements, and raise some points about the application of a Weberian analysis, suggesting elements in such an approach that appear to his to be fruitful and relevant to students of Islamic reform. Max Weber’s ideal-typical approach focused on civilizations as a whole, minimizing not only world interconnections but, outside Europe, change over time. Despite certain evident similarities of the teachings of Islamic reform and of European puritanism, Islamic reform, one must add, differs from European puritanism in one dimension that is central to Weber’s argument. Only in exceptional cases does Islamic reform give rise to the kind of psychological tension that generates sustained rationalized action in the political, let alone the economic, sphere.
