ABSTRACT
Giorgio Weber’s argument concerning Islamic law is of considerable complexity and refinement. Arab merchants were highly successful capitalists in, for instance, the trade in the Indian Ocean, but they were confined by the Islamic institution of partnership. The Islamic world never fully recovered, and that disparity feeds resentment today, although the advent of the petro economy has involved a stunning comeback for at least some Arab countries. Under Islamic law, by contrast, inheritance was prescribed in rigid detail, with all sorts of family members – uncles, cousins, siblings, parents, and so on – getting pieces of the estate. Tribal influences on law remained, but were softened and Islamicised, leading to the organisation of Islamic jurisprudence some 200 years after the death of the prophet. The uncertainty comes back onto Islamic law in whatever way resolution of the incompleteness problem is attempted.
