not clerics, e.g., immans, mullahsor religious virtuosos. While they may have
been appointed by the State, absent legislative bodies, jurism in Islam was
not centrally legislated or litigated; it was based on particular interpretation
and local conditions.^19 Quranic commercial law was based on the Shariah legal
codes and regulations that were the product of the HanafiSchool and were
based in large part on what had been local commercial practices and tradi-
tions. Kadis offered the interpretations of these commercial codes and settled
conflicts. It was highly important that, for Islamic societies, social [legal] ratio-
nality was closely tied to the foundations of specific religious categories,
beliefs, and exercises in relation to everyday life, commerce, and governance.
This is not to imply that such justice was random, haphazard or without
extensive formal training. Agricultural commerce and caravan-based, mer-
chant trade were highly regulated by religiously-based laws. This established
predictable conditions that were highly conducive to economic growth. Indeed
from the time of the Prophet and the holy Caliphs, trade was highly valued
and its traders acted very much like Protestant capitalists (Rodinson, 1966).
The unity of sacred and secular law enabled an ethically regulated trade that
flourished. But while this commerce was routinizedit was notrationalized in
the Weberian sense. Nevertheless, within a couple of centuries, Islam quickly
spread and its trade networks spanned from Iberia to China.
Eventually, however, the religiously-based legal codes would acquire a
fixity that would act to prevent later generations from making fundamental
revisions as material conditions changed.^20 While Islamic commercial laws
would at first facilitate the rapid growth of Islamic commerce, these same
laws became impediments to the expansion of the economy both from within
and without. On the one hand there were limits to the size of commercial
enterprises. This in turn meant that Muslim traders would be less able to
compete with later Europeans. Firstly, Islamic merchant trading associations,
whether or not familial, could not assume the legal form of a joint stock cor-
poration with juridical rights independent of the owners. Moreover, Muslim
merchants did not employ the kinds of economic rationality, e.g., double entry
bookkeeping, or risk insurance as did the upstart Italian merchants who were
304 • Lauren Langman
(^19) It is important to note that Islam did not have a centralized clerical hierarchy.
(^20) Timur Kuran, The Islamic Commercial Crisis: Institutional Roots of the Delay in the
Middle East’s Economic Modernization. (Los Angeles, California, 2001): USC Center for
Law, Economics and Organization, Research paper, CO01–12, http://papers.srn.com/
abstract_id+276377