The Economic Bases of Islam

Abstract

Abstract To say that Islam is merely a religious idea, that its triumph over Arab paganism, its rapid spread, and the widespread victories of the Rashi dun and Umayyad caliphs are all traceable to religious zeal or fanaticism, is considered ridiculous today. Such views have been disproven by historical and economic research by the likes of Professor Wellhausen, Prince Caetani, Professor H. Lammens, T. Noldeke, and V. V. Bartol’d, among others. For it has been well established that Islam, like all other great religions, is not only religious thought but a social and economic matter as well—0r, more precisely, more so than it is religious thought. Prince Caetani said, “Islam was not a religious movement except outwardly; its essence was political and economic.”Part of the genius of the founder of Islam was that he comprehended the source of the economic and social movement which appeared in his time in Mecca, capital of the Hijaz. And he knew how to turn it to profitable account for his lofty religious and social ideals. Caetani says, “Islam is the last emigration of the Arabs and its incentive was the same as that which induced similar movements previously in the Arabian peninsula, i.e., the continuing dessication of the land and its consequent depression and poverty.” As the well-known Dutch orientalist M. deGoeje said, “The cause of the appearance of the Islamic movement was religion; however, the Arab tribes and the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina turned toward it and entered into it for reasons other than religion.