ABSTRACT
Bypassing a long tradition of oriental studies that 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. Mohammed was both a missionary and a political prophet, but he would be contested as a political leader by Ali Abd el Raziq in 1926, shortly after the abolition of the Ottoman Califat, on 3 March 1924. 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 by implication 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 a practical orientation to this conduct. Confucianism was the religion of prebendal literates who propagated a secular form of rationalism.
