Part II The Ascent and Decline of the Islamic Caliphate
Muhammad, Mecca and Beyond
In the sixth century, conflicts between Persia and Byzantium pushed caravan
routes southerly into the Saudi Peninsula (Turner 1974). But the chronic rival-
ries and wars between the nomadic tribes made orderly, predictable trade
precarious. It was in this context that the Prophet Muhammad, a trader,
received the word of Allah from the archangel Gabriel that was written down
as the Quran. Muhammad began to spread the holy words of Allah that
would bring a monotheistic religion to the pagan tribes who would become
unified through a monotheistic “world religion”. Although Islam began as a
form of quietist piety among urban merchants, it would change to a more
activist expression as it gained followers.
At the time of its origin in Mecca, the eschatological religion of Muhammad
developed in pietistic urban conventicles that were likely to withdraw from
the world: subsequently in Medina and in the evolution of early Islamic
communities, the religion was transformed into a widespread Arabic, sta-
tus oriented, warrior religion.^15Muhammad, as a prophet and skilled arbiter, found a ready audience among
the growing classes of traders and merchants, whose status disposed an “elec-
tive affinity” for a salvation religion that would establish an “imagined com-
munity” of people united by faith that provided members with valorized,
sacralized identities, and a God ordained ethical regulation of everyday con-
duct conducive to the expansion of commerce. The Middle East would become
safe for the expansion of trade. But that expansion was also dependent on a
warrior class that cast a decided stamp on its worldly ethic.
As Weber noted in the case of Protestantism, shared and upheld ethical
standards between members of the religious “brotherhood”, between mem-
bers of a common “world” religion, enabled trust in strangers that was essen-
tial for the conduct of business in large, widespread markets. Islam, as a
“world religion” of warriors and merchants, pacified the area and established
universal moral codes for regulating everyday life and orderly commerce;
this in turn facilitated mercantile-based economic growth. Thus, the economic
conditions of the time disposed an “elective affinity” for a “world religion”
From the Caliphate to the Shaheedim• 301(^15) Wolfgang Schluchter, “Hindrances to Modernity, Max Weber and Islam.” Toby
Huff and Wolfgang Schlucter, Max Weber and Islam(New Brunswick, N.J., 1999) 79.