Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism proposes a strikingly original thesis—that capitalism first emerged in Arabia, not in late medieval Italian city states as is commonly assumed. Early Islam made a seminal but largely unrecognized contribution to the history of economic thought; it is the...

Adam Smith characterized the medieval Roman Catholic Church as a force impeding Europe’s process of development. The Church was, in Smith words, “the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as well as against the liberty,...