ABSTRACT
Capitalism is a universal phenomenon and has existed within all the various large cultural spheres, including the Occident and Asia, as well as within the various historical periods: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the colonial period and the age of globalisation. When enquiring into the causes of the economic retardation of the Muslim civilisation, then, one may follow one of two possible research agendas. Either one argues that Islam as a religion hinders economic rationality, or one claims that traditional Muslim institutions slowed down economic expansion. In this chapter one has enquired into whether the retardation of the Muslim civilisation is critically due to the impact of one of the world religions, which Weber neglected, namely Islam. Weber followed the first approach, linking Islam with oriental feudalism and the quest for looting among the Muslim warriors. Economic expansion has taken place in several Arab countries as well as in non-Arab Muslim countries such as Malaysia.
