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. "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. A historical analysis of economic thought in Islamic tradition which interrogates contemporary Islamic economics as a hybrid system.