The Making of Islamic Economic Thought : Islamization, Law, and Moral Discourses

Interrogating the development and conceptual framework of economic thought in the Islamic tradition pertaining to ethical, philosophical, and theological ideas, this book provides a critique of modern Islamic economics as a hybrid economic system. From the outset, Sami Al-Daghistani is concerned with the polyvalent methodology of studying the phenomenon of Islamic economic thought as a human science in that it nurtures a complex plentitude of meanings and interpretations associated with the moral self. By studying legal scholars, theologians, and Sufis in the classical period, Al-Daghistani looks at economic thought in the context of Sharī'a's moral law. Alongside critiquing modern developments of Islamic economics, he puts forward an idea for a plural epistemology of Islam's moral economy, which advocates for a multifaceted hermeneutical reading of the subject in light of a moral law, embedded in a particular cosmology of human relationality, metaphysical intelligibility, and economic subjectivity. Cover Half-title page Title page Copyright page Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction The Premise Western Philosophical Tradition and the Birth of Economic Science The Genealogy of Modern Islamic Economics Classical Scholarship and the Moral Self Methodology and Theoretical Framework Scholarly Relevance of Premodern Economic Teachings 1 The Force of Revivalism and Islamization: Their Impact on Knowledge, Politics, and Islamic Economics 1.1 The Socioeconomic Paradigm against the Backdrop of a Colonial Past 1.2 Contextualizing Muslim Reformists’ Understanding of Socialism, Capitalism, and Spirituality 1.3 Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and the Twentieth-Century Transition from Nation to Islamic State 1.4 Islam and the Economic System between the 1930s and the 1970s 1.5 Islamization of Knowledge Process and Contemporary Islamic Thought 1.6 Islamization of the Islamic Economy (1979–Present) 1.7 Concluding Remarks 2 The Present: Muslim Economists and the Constellation of Islamic Economics 2.1 Introductory Remarks 2.2 Theories and Definitions: Recent Developments and Contentions 2.3 Methodologies of Contemporary Islamic Economics 2.4 Islamic Economics and Forms of Conventional Knowledge 2.5 Islamic Jurisprudential Economics and Islamic Law 2.6 Contemporary Muslim Economists’ Views on Classical Muslim Scholars 2.7 Concluding Remarks 3 The Past Perfect: Sharīʿa and the Intellectual History of Islamic Economic Teachings 3.1 Widening the Scope of Classical Economic and Legal Thought in Islam 3.2 Sharīʿa’s Legal Supremacy versus Moral Cosmology 3.3 Maqāsid, Istiḥsān, Maṣlaḥa, and Economic Preservation in Sharīʿa 3.4 Siyāsa Sharʿiyya: Between the Moral and Legal Realm 3.5 Metaphysics and the History of Islam’s Moral Economics 3.6 The Nature of Markets, Price Control, and the Notion of Fair Price 3.7 The Value of Wealth (Māl) and the Hereafter 3.8 Productivity, Value of Labor, and Cooperation 3.9 Islamic Authority (Wilāya) and the Principle of Moral Integrity 3.10 Concluding Remarks 4 The Appraisal: Contemporary Islamic Economics and the Entrenchment of Modernity 4.1 Introductory Remarks 4.2 Modern Divergence of Sharīʿa’s Moral Principles 4.3 Critiquing the Discipline of Islamic Economics 4.4 The Islamization of Economics 4.5 Concluding Remarks 5 Pluralistic Epistemology of Islam’s Moral Economics 5.1 Introductory Remarks 5.2 Moral Cosmology and Pluralistic Epistemology in Islamic Tradition 5.3 Economic Development in Light of Spiritual Prosperity Conclusion: Moral over Legal, Pluralistic over Monolithic Appendix Bibliography Index "Economic thought in Islamic tradition is not about economics as we understand it in modern terms, with respect to material prosperity, economic development, and consumption and transfer of wealth. In fact, one could state that economic thought analyzed by classical Muslim scholars is the least concerned with such pursuits. Rather, it pertains to much broader human and Divine relations, as well as behavioural patterns of spiritual, metaphysical, and above all, moral qualities, irreducible only to the natural order"-- Provided by publisher By analyzing classical Muslim scholars, Sufis, and legal specialists, whose ideas were embedded in Sharī'a law, this looks at the conceptual, epistemological, and sociopolitical factors of major classical and modern Muslim writings on moral economic thought in the Islamic tradition. By analyzing classical Muslim scholars, Sufis, and legal specialists, whose ideas were embedded in Shari'a law, this looks at the conceptual, epistemological, and sociopolitical factors of major classical and modern Muslim writings on moral economic thought in the Islamic tradition.