6 Islam and Capitalist

Development: A Critique
of Rodinson and Weber
Jomo K. s.
Maxime Rodinson's Islam and Capitalism was first published in
France in 1966 and translated into English in 1974. It seeks to
examine whether or not Islamic tenets can explain why capitalism did
not develop indigenously in Muslim countries but was introduced
from outside. It also seeks to determine whether or not Islam is
opposed to capitalist development, as is often claimed. In particular,
Rodinson refutes the Weberian thesis that Islam lacks the rationalism
necessary for the successful development of capitalism. He outlines
the elements of economic doctrine present in the Quran and the
Sunnah (Islamic tradition) and examines the relationship between
doctrine and practice in both the medieval and contemporary Muslim
world. He identifies certain areas of ambiguity and contradiction
within the doctrine itself and reveals the divergence between doctrine
and economic practice in the Islamic world. He examines Islamic
ideology and questions whether it has hindered or favoured capitalist
development, on the one hand, and whether it provides sufficient
basis for an anti-capitalist struggle or for promoting socialism, on the
other. His answer to both these questions is negative. He further
argues that the economic paths followed by Muslim countries, his-
torically and today, cannot be attributed to Islam, but rather are
primarily the result of the social forces of production.
The economic doctrine of Islam is to be found in both the Quran
and the Sunnah (Rodinson, 1974, p. 14). There is no passage in the
Quran which opposes private property. According to Rodinson,
inequalities go unchallenged, though wealth is held to be useless in
the face of God's judgement and also provides temptation to neglect
religion. Nothing is said about the ownership of the means of produc-
tion, and wage labour is held to be a natural institution. In the realm
of economic activity, the Quran appears to favour commerce, to
condemn fraudulent practices, and to require abstention from trade
during festivals. The clearest and strongest prohibition is on riba l
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K. S. Jomo (ed.), Islamic Economic Alternatives
© Jomo K. S. 1992
126 Islamic Economic Alternatives

('increase'), and there is an obligation to pay zakat - alms for the

needy, distributed through a welfare fund controlled by the state.
The Sunnah has little to add to Ouranic doctrine. It seems to
uphold the right to private ownership, subject to customary and state
restrictions in some countries, and 'the right of everyone to life'. That
is, a man dying of hunger is justified in taking the minimum amount
of food necessary to keep himself alive - even at the expense of the
'legitimate' owner. The Sunnah favours the search for profit, trade,
and production for the market to the same extent as the Ouran. But
any selling in which there is an element of uncertainty, such as sale by
auction, is prohibited, as are aleatory contracts based on risk or
chance. Some traditions advocate absolute honesty in trade, pre-
scribing that one should not praise one's merchandise, but should
point out any defects in it and so on. These may pose obstacles to
commercial competition.
In his examination of economic practices in the Muslim world of
the Middle Ages (Rodinson, 1974, p. 35), Rodinson shows that they
generally conflicted with prescribed doctrine. He argues against those
historians who try to show that the prohibition of riba prevented
certain types of economic activity among Muslims. In fact, Muslim
legalists found many ways to get around theoretical prohibitions.
These methods were called hiyal, or ruses. The ease of borrowing
from non-Muslims tended to encourage specialisation in usury by the
latter in a society where trade specialisation was the norm among
particular religious, ethnic or local groups. But where such non-
Muslim groups did not exist or were insignificant, Muslims readily
took on these tasks themselves; and even where non-Muslim money-
lenders did exist, there was frequently thinly-disguised competition
from Muslims. Thus, usury, practiced by both Muslims and non-
Muslims, was rife throughout the Muslim world. Rodinson cites
many examples of this in different periods and regions.
Rodinson also discusses the existence of a capitalistic sector in the
Muslim world of the Middle Ages, i.e. a sector from which a capital-
ist socio-economic formation might have been able to develop, given
certain conditions. But Rodinson does not elaborate systematically
on what these other conditions might have been. There was substan-
tial development of commercial and financial capital and less in
productive capital (Rodinson, 1974, p. 53). This capitalistic sector
was already extensive and highly-developed in the Muslim world
before the domination of the world market by the Western European
bourgeoisie. Its failure to develop indigenously into a full-blown