ABSTRACT
Modernization theory was originally based upon concepts of industrialization underpinning economic growth following the West, while the modern study of development is shaped typically by economics.1 This is seemingly the case of legal development as viewed by the international financial institutions (IFIs, in particular the World Bank and IMF) tied in particular to implementation of the Washington Consensus. So we shall talk about law and society in the modernization context in questioning certain economic “articles of faith,” since even in the West some scholars now speak of “market ideology” or “market fundamentalism.” But the deeper problem is that, under current circumstances, within the Islamic world “modernization” as concept seems inapposite to the extent that it is interpreted as Westernization.
