Introduction to section 1. Classical approaches : understanding Islam

My approach to the sociology of religion and to the study of Islam has been continuously influenced by classical sociology. I saw Islam as a civilisation that raised important issues for sociological theory, and in contemporary social sciences it invoked issues about inter-civilisational analysis, Orientalism, universalism and cosmopolitanism which continue to have relevance to modern problems of analysis and interpretation. In short my sociological work, and hence this Reader, has been preoccupied by questions relating to historical and comparative research. It was inevitable that the sociology of Max Weber has occupied much of my career. Weber's comparative study of religion, society and politics across a range of cultures was for me an exciting and challenging approach. As a young student on a long journey through Eastern Europe and Russia in 1962, I became attracted intellectually to the comparative study of capitalism and communism. However, in much contemporary anthropology and sociology, the emphasis has increasingly been on the local, specific and the particular. My own work has largely departed from these trends and hence I often find myself writing against rather than with the grain.