BOOK REVIEW: EARLY ISLAM an‎d THE BIRTH OF CAPITALISM

This book advances a very powerful hypothesis; the author claims that capitalism originated inIslam with Makkahas its birthplace, instead of Christianity and medieval city-states in Italy during the Renaissance. This claim contradicts the mainstream view that holds capitalism as being against Islamic teachings. The author explored key historical events in early Islam and linked these events to several main principles of capitalism to support his hypothesis. The author used the historical approach, where the book narratives start from the socio-economic background of Arabia and its peripherals before the dawn of Islam and end at the Crusades aftermath, when capitalism had been fully transferred to the maritime republics in Italy