Islamic economic jurisprudence

Islamic economics refers to the body of Islamic studies literature that "identifies and promotes an economic order that conforms to Islamic scripture and traditions," and in the economic world an interest-free Islamic banking system, grounded in Sharia's condemnation of interest (Riba). The literature originated in "the late 1940s, and especially" after "the mid-1960s."[1] The banking system developed during the 1970s.[2] Islamic economic literatures' central features have been called "behavioral norms" derived from the Quran and Sunna, zakat tax as the basis of Islamic fiscal policy and prohibition of interest.[1]
In Shia Islam, some scholars such as Mahmoud Taleghani, and Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, have developed an "Islamic economics" emphasizing the uplifting of the deprived masses, a major role for the state in matters such as circulation and equitable distribution of wealth, and ensuring participants in the marketplace are rewarded for being exposed to risk and/or liability.
Islamist movements and authors generally describe an Islamic economic system as neither Socialist nor Capitalist, but a "third way" with none of the drawbacks of the other two systems.[3][4]
Traditional Islamic concepts having to do with economics included
zakat - the "taxing of certain goods, such as harvest, with an eye to allocating these taxes to expenditures that are also explicitly defined, such as aid to the needy."
Gharar - "the interdiction of chance ... that is, of the presence of any element of uncertainty, in a contract (which excludes not only insurance but also the lending of money without participation in the risks)"
Riba - "referred to as usury (modern Islamic economist have consensus that it does not refer to usury only rather Riba is any kind of interest)" [5]
These concepts, like others in Islamic law, came from the "prescriptions, anecdotes, examples, and words of Muhammad, all gathered together and systematized by commentators according to an inductive, casuistic method." [5] Sometimes other sources such as al-urf, (the custom), al-aql (reason) or al-ijma (consensus of the jurists) were employed.[6]
In addition, Islamic law has developed areas of law that correspond to secular laws of contracts and torts.
Early reforms under Islam
Main article: Early reforms under Islam
Some argue early Islamic theory and practice formed a "coherent" economic system with "a blueprint for a new order in society, in which all participants would be treated more fairly". Michael Bonner, for example, has written that an "economy of poverty" prevailed in Islam until 13th and 14th century. Under this system God's guidance made sure the flow of money and goods was "purified" by being channeled from those who had much of it to those who had little by encouraging zakat (tax) and discouraging riba (usury/interest) on loans. Bonner maintains Muhammad also helped poor traders by allowing only tents, not permanent buildings in the market of Medina, and not charging fees and rents there.[7]
Classical Muslim economic thought

Economy in the Caliphate
During the Arab Agricultural Revolution, a social transformation took place as a result of changing land ownership giving individuals of any gender,[15] ethnic or religious background the right to buy, sell, mortgage and inherit land. Based on the Quran, signatures were required on contracts for major financial transactions concerning agriculture, industry, commerce, and employment. Copies of the contract were usually kept by both parties involved.
There are similarities between Islamic economics and leftist or socialist economic policies. Islamic jurists have argued that privatization of the origin of oil, gas, and other fire-producing fuels, agricultural land, and water is forbidden. The principle of public or joint ownership has been drawn by Muslim jurists from the following hadith of the Prophet of Islam:
Ibn Abbas reported that Muhammad said: "All Muslims are partners in three things- in water, herbage and fire." (Narrated in Abu Daud, & Ibn Majah) [4] Anas added to the above hadith, "Its price is Haram (forbidden)" [16] Jurists have argued by qiyas that the above restriction on privatization can be extended to all essential resources that benefit the community as a whole.[17]
Aside from similarities to socialism, early forms of proto-capitalism and free markets were present in the Caliphate.[18] An early market economy and early form of merchant capitalism developed between the 8th and 12th centuries.[19] A vigorous monetary economy developed based on the wide circulation of a common currency (the dinar) and the integration of previously independent monetary areas. Business techniques and forms of business organization employed during this time included early contracts, bills of exchange, long-distance international trade, early forms of partnership (mufawada) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba), and early forms of credit, debt, profit, loss, capital (al-mal), capital accumulation (nama al-mal),[20] circulating capital, capital expenditure, revenue, cheques, promissory notes,[21] trusts (waqf), savings accounts, transactional accounts, pawning, loaning, exchange rates, bankers, money changers, ledgers, deposits, assignments, the double-entry bookkeeping system,[22] and lawsuits.[23] Organizational enterprises similar to corporations independent from the state also existed in the medieval Islamic world.[24][25] Many of these concepts were adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.[20]
The concepts of welfare and pension were present in early Islamic law as forms of Zakat one of the Five Pillars of Islam, since the time of the Rashidun caliph Umar in the 7th century. The taxes (including Zakat and Jizya) collected in the treasury (Bayt al-mal) of an Islamic government were used to provide income for the needy, including the poor, the elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled. According to the Islamic jurist Al-Ghazali (Algazel, 1058–1111), the government was also expected to stockpile food supplies in every region in case a disaster or famine occurred. The Caliphate was thus one of the earliest welfare states.[26][27]
[edit]Post-colonial era
During the modern post-colonial era, as Western ideas, including Western economics, began to influence the Muslim world, some Muslim writers sought to produce an Islamic discipline of economics. Because Islam is not merely a spiritual formula but a complete system of life in all its walks,[28] these writers believed that it should logically follow that Islam also had its own economic system unique from and superior to non-Islamic systems.[7] To date, however, there have been no agreement as to the methodological definition and scope of Islamic Economics.
In the 1960s and 70s Shia Islamic thinkers worked to develop a unique Islamic economic philosophy with "its own answers to contemporary economic problems." Several works were particularly influential,
Eslam va Malekiyyat (Islam and Property) by Mahmud Taleqani (1951),
Iqtisaduna (Our Economics) by Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr (1961) and
Eqtesad-e Towhidi (The Economics of Divine Harmony) by Abolhassan Banisadr (1978)
Some Interpretations of Property Rights, Capital and Labor from Islamic Perspective by Habibullah Peyman (1979).[29][30]
Al-Sadr in particular has been described as having "almost single-handedly developed the notion of Islamic economics" [31]
In their writings Sadr and the other authors "sought to depict Islam as a religion committed to social justice, the equitable distribution of wealth, and the cause of the deprived classes," with doctrines "acceptable to Islamic jurists", while refuting existing non-Islamic theories of capitalism and Marxism. This version of Islamic economics, which influenced the Iranian Revolution, called for public ownership of land and of large "industrial enterprises," while private economic activity continued "within reasonable limits." [32] These ideas helped shape the large public sector and public subsidy policies of the Iranian Revolution.
In the 1980s and 1990s, as the Islamic revolution failed to reach the per capita income level achieved by the regime it overthrew, and Communist states and socialist parties in the non-Muslim world turned away from socialism, Muslim interest shifted away from government ownership and regulation. In Iran, it is reported that "eqtesad-e Eslami (meaning both Islamic economics and economy) ... once a revolutionary shibboleth, is indubitably absent in all official documents and the media. It disapperared from Iranian political discourse about 15 years ago [1990]." [30]
But in other parts of the Muslim world the term lived on, shifting form to the less ambitious goal of interest-free banking. Some Muslim bankers and religious leaders suggested ways to integrate Islamic law on usage of money with modern concepts of ethical investing. In banking this was done through the use of sales transactions (focusing on the fixed rate return modes) to achieve similar results to interest. This has been heavily criticized by many modern writers as a means of covering conventional banking with an Islamic facade.
[edit]Traditional approach
While many Muslims believe Islamic law is perfect by virtue of its being revealed by God, Islamic law on economic issues was/is not "economics" in the sense of a systematic study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. An example of the traditionalist ulama approach to economic issues is Imam Khomeini's work Tawzih al-masa'il where the term `economy` does not appear and where the chapter on selling and buying (Kharid o forush) comes after the one on pilgrimage. As Olivier Roy puts it, the work "presents economic questions as individual acts open to moral analysis: `To lend [without interest, on a note from the lender] is among the good works that are particularly recommended in the verses of the Quran and the in the Traditions.`" [33]
References

^ a b "The economic system in contemporary Islamic thought: Interpretation and assessment", by Timur Kuran, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 18, 1986, p.135-164
^ Islamic Economics and the Islamic Subeconomy by Timur Kuran, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1985
^ Islam and Economic Justice: A 'Third Way' Between Capitalism and Socialism?
^ How Do We Know Islam Will Solve the Problems of Poverty and Inequality?
^ a b Roy, The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press, 1994, p.132
^ Schirazi, Asghar, Constitution of Iran, (1997), p.170
^ a b Michael Bonner, "Poverty and Economics in the Qur’an", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxv:3 (Winter, 2005), 391–406
^ Schumpeter (1954) p 136 mentions his sociology, others, including Hosseini (2003) emphasize him as well
^ I. M. Oweiss (1988), "Ibn Khaldun, the Father of Economics", Arab Civilization: Challenges and Responses, New York University Press, ISBN 0887066984.
^ Jean David C. Boulakia (1971), "Ibn Khaldun: A Fourteenth-Century Economist", The Journal of Political Economy 79 (5): 1105-1118.
^ Weiss (1995) p29-30
^ Weiss (1995) p31 quotes Muqaddimah 2:276-278
^ Weiss (1995), p. 31, quotes Muqaddimah 2: 272-273
^ Weiss (1995), p. 33
^ Maya Shatzmiller, p. 263.
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ The Cambridge economic history of Europe, p. 437. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521087090.
^ Timur Kuran (2005), "The Absence of the Corporation in Islamic Law: Origins and Persistence", American Journal of Comparative Law 53, p. 785-834 [798-799].
^ a b Jairus Banaji (2007), "Islam, the Mediterranean and the rise of capitalism", Historical Materialism 15 (1), p. 47-74, Brill Publishers.
^ Robert Sabatino Lopez, Irving Woodworth Raymond, Olivia Remie Constable (2001), Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231123574.
^ Subhi Y. Labib (1969), "Capitalism in Medieval Islam", The Journal of Economic History 29 (1), p. 79-96 [92-93].
^ Ray Spier (2002), "The history of the peer-review process", Trends in Biotechnology 20 (8), p. 357-358 [357].
^ Said Amir Arjomand (1999), "The Law, Agency, and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century", Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, p. 263-293. Cambridge University Press.
^ Samir Amin (1978), "The Arab Nation: Some Conclusions and Problems", MERIP Reports 68, p. 3-14 [8, 13].
^ Crone, Patricia (2005), Medieval Islamic Political Thought, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 308–9, ISBN 0748621946
^ Shadi Hamid (August 2003), "An Islamic Alternative? Equality, Redistributive Justice, and the Welfare State in the Caliphate of Umar", Renaissance: Monthly Islamic Journal 13 (8) (see online)
^ The Economic Life of Islam
^ Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, Basic Books, c1984, p.167-8
^ a b Revolutionary Surge and Quiet Demise of Islamic Economics in Iran
^ The Renewal of Islamic Law
^ Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, Basic Books, c1984, p.172-3
^ Roy, The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press, 1994, p.133
^ Nomani and Rahnema quote Qur'an 2:107, Qur'an 2:255, Qur'an 2:284, Qur'an 5:120, Qur'an 48:14
^ a b c d e f Nomani and Rahnema (1994), p. 66-70
^ a b c Nomani and Rahnema (1994), p. 71-77
^ a b c d e f Nomani and Rahnema (1994), p. 55-58
^ Nomani and Rahnema cite Qur'an 4:29, Qur'an 2:275 and Qur'an 2:279
^ Nomani and Rahnema cite Qur'an 5:1, Qur'an 16:91, Qur'an 23:8, Qur'an 17:34 and Qur'an 70:32
^ Nomani and Rahnema cite Qur'an 2:282.
^ Nomani and Rahnema cite Qur'an 55:9, Qur'an 26:181–183, Qur'an 11:84–85. They also point out that a chapter is devoted to such fraudulent practices: Qur'an 83:1–3
^ a b c d e f Meinhaj Hussain (June 2010), 21st Century Islamic State, 2.0 (see [3])
^ Historical dominance on money changing business
^ Opalesque (30 December 2009). "Malaysia exchange reviewing sharia compliant bonds".
^ Islamic Finance, Forbes (April 21, 2008)
^ Sohrab Behada, "Property Rights in Contemporary Islamic Economic Thought, Review of Social Economy, Summer 1989 v.47, (pp.185-211)
^ Kuran, "The Economic Impact of Islamic Fundamentalism," in Marty and Appleby Fundamentalisms and the State, U of Chicago Press, 1993, p.302-41
^ "The Discontents of Islamic Economic Mortality" by Timur Kuran, American Economic Review, 1996, p.438-442
^ a b Halliday, Fred, 100 Myths about the Middle East, Saqi Books, 2005 p.89