Islam Observed: Another Neglected Classic of Comparative Religion and Ethics

Despite the appearance of disagreement, John Kelsay and I agree on the continuing importance of Max Weber for work in comparative religion and ethics. My objections to “grand theory” are those of C. Wright Mills, who worries about the professionalization of work in the social sciences stifling “the sociological imagination.” I go on to argue that Clifford Geertz’s Islam Observed is a valuable paradigm of how to do comparative ethics diachronically and continue to argue that Kelsay’s worries about the “third wave” in comparative ethics are exactly the worries that would be singled out by thinkers such as Mills and Geertz.