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Islamic Jurisprudence
a discipline of Islamic studies Fields Economic o Zakat Jizya Nisab Khums Sadaqah Waqf Bayt al-mal o Banking Riba Murabaha Takaful Sukuk Inheritance Political Marital Criminal Etiquette Theological Hygiene Military
Islamic economics is economics in accordance with Islamic law. Islamic economics can refer to the application of Islamic law to economic activity either where Islamic rule is in force or where it is not; i.e. it can refer to the creation of an Islamic economic system, or to simply following Islamic law in regards to spending, saving, investing, giving, etc. where the state does not follow Islamic law. The former paradigm, particularly as developed by modern Shia scholars such as Mahmud Taleqani, and Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, seeks not only to enforce Islamic regulations on issues such as Zakat, Jizya, Nisab, Khums, Riba, insurance and inheritance, but to implement broader economic goals and policies of an Islamic society. It seeks an economic system based on uplifting 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 by being exposed to risk and/or liability. Islamists movements and authors will generally describe this system as being neither Socialist nor Capitalist, but a third way with none of the drawbacks of the other two systems. [1][2] The latter paradigm is of necessity more limited, revolving around a few main tenets of Islam: the payment of zakat charity by believers, borrowing and lending without payment of fixed interest (riba), and socially responsible investing. The key difference from a financial perspective is the no-interest rule since most other religions favor charitable giving and socially responsible investing. The belief that investiment with interest charges is essential for an Islamic society is widespread, though liberal movements within Islam may deny the need for this prohibition, since they see Islam as generally compatible with modern secular institutions and law.
Contents
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1 History o 1.1 Early reforms under Islam o 1.2 Capitalist market economy o 1.3 Early Muslim economic thought o 1.4 Post-colonial era o 1.5 Traditional approach 2 Interest 3 Debt arrangements 4 Natural capital 5 Welfare 6 Islamic stocks 7 Popularity and availability 8 Business Method Patents 9 Criticism 10 References 11 Bibliography
13 External links
[edit] History
Main article: Islamic economics in the world 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" [3]
These concepts, like others in Islamic law, came from the "prescriptions, anecdotes, examples, and words of the Prophet, all gathered together and systematized by commentators according to an inductive, casuistic method." [4] Sometimes other sources such as al-urf, (the custom), al-aql (reason) or al-ijma (consensus of the jurists) were employed.[5] In addition, Islamic law has developed areas of law that correspond to secular laws of contracts and torts.
The origins of capitalism and free markets can be traced back to the Islamic Golden Age and Muslim Agricultural Revolution,[7] where the first market economy and earliest forms of merchant capitalism took root between the 8th12th centuries, which some refer to as "Islamic capitalism".[8] A vigorous monetary economy was created on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organisation were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included the earliest trading companies, big businesses, contracts, bills of exchange, long-distance international trade, the first forms of partnership (mufawada) such as limited partnerships (mudaraba), and the earliest forms of credit, debt, profit, loss, capital (al-mal), capital accumulation (nama almal),[9] circulating capital, capital expenditure, revenue, cheques, promissory notes,[10] trusts (waqf), startup companies,[11] savings accounts, transactional accounts, pawning, loaning, exchange rates, bankers, money changers, ledgers, deposits, assignments, the double-entry bookkeeping system,[12] and lawsuits.[13] Organizational enterprises similar to corporations independent from the state also existed in the medieval Islamic world.[14] [15] Many of these early capitalist concepts were adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 13th century onwards.[9] The systems of contract relied upon by merchants was very effective. Merchants would buy and sell on commission, with money loaned to them by wealthy investors, or a joint investment of several merchants, who were often Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Recently, a collection of documents was found in an Egyptian synagogue shedding a very detailed and human light on the life of medieval Middle Eastern merchants. Business partnerships would be made for many commercial ventures, and bonds of kinship enabled trade networks to form over huge distances. Networks developed during this time enabled a world in which money could be promised by a bank in Baghdad and cashed in Spain, creating the cheque system of today. Each time items passed through the cities along this extraordinary network, the city imposed a tax, resulting in high prices once reaching the final destination. These innovations made by Muslims and Jews laid the foundations for the modern economic system.
Statue of Ibn Khaldoun in Tunis Main article: Islamic economics in the world To some degree, the early Muslims based their economic analyses on the Qu'ran (such as opposition to riba, meaning usury or interest), and from sunnah, the sayings and doings of Muhammad. Perhaps the most well known Islamic scholar who wrote about economics was Ibn Khaldun of Tunisia (13321406). [16] Ibn Khaldun wrote on economic and political theory in the introduction, or Muqaddimah (Prolegomena), of his History of the World (Kitab al-Ibar). In the book, he discussed what he called asabiyya (social cohesion), which he sourced as the cause of some civilizations becoming great and others not. Ibn Khaldun felt that many social forces are cyclic, although there can be sudden sharp turns that break the pattern.[17] His idea about the benefits of the division of labor also relate to asabiyya, the greater the social cohesion, the more complex the successful division may be, the greater the economic growth. He noted that growth and development positively stimulates both supply and demand, and that the forces of supply and demand are what determines the prices of goods.[18] He also noted macroeconomic forces of population growth, human capital development, and technological developments effects on development.[19] In fact, Ibn Khaldun thought that population growth was directly a function of wealth.[20] Other important early Muslim scholars who wrote about economics include Abu Hanifah, Abu Yusuf (731-798), Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi (854931), al-Farabi (873950), Qabus (d. 1012), Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (9801037), Ibn Miskawayh (b. 1030), al-Ghazali (1058 1111), al-Mawardi (10751158), Nasr al-Dn al-Ts (1201-1274), Ibn Taimiyah (1263 1328) and al-Maqrizi.
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).[23] [24]
Al-Sadr in particular has been described as having "almost single-handedly developed the notion of Islamic economics" [25] 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." [26] These ideas helped shape the large public sector and public subsidy policies of the Iranian Islamic 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]." [27] 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 criticised by many modern writers as a means of covering conventional banking with an Islamic facade.
[edit] Interest
Main article: Islamic banking
Islamic economic institutions, not just the Islamic bank but all those connected with Islamic banking operates on the basis of "zero interest." Critics of Islamic economics argue, however, that the fundamental characteristic of charging interest (i.e. charging a premium, on the principal amount of a loan, for the time value of the loaned money) is not truly eliminated in Islamic banking, but rather the interest is merely hidden and relabeled. For example, consider the practical reality of purchasing a vehicle from an Islamic bank under an allegedly "zero interest" loan. The procedure, generally, is that the client tells the Islamic bank which vehicle he or she would like to own. The Islamic bank then purchases that vehicle in its name, and sells it to the client at a marked-up price, under an agreement that the new marked-up price of the vehicle must be paid in a certain number of installments of a certain time period. Thus a $20,000 car might cost $35,000 if purchased from an Islamic bank at "zero interest," 5 year loan. Of course, the bank charges the extra $15,000 on top of the $20,000 cost of the car because money has a time value (that is to say, a payment of $20,000 5 years from now is worth less than a payment of $20,000 today). This is also why a $20,000 car could cost $35,000 if the purchase were financed by an interest bearing loan issued by a non-Islamic financial institution. This transaction utilises valid sales transactions called murabaha, but violates Islamic law by the bank usually not taking delivery or connecting two independent contracts or taking of legally enforceable guarantees from the buyer. Usually, time value of money is compensated to the lender by the lender charging the borrower interest on the principal amount of the loan. Islam prohibits time value of money in itself as producing no value - in conjunction with other value driven agreements the idea is entertained. In the case of Islamic banking, the lost time value is compensated by utilising a sales contract, charging a mark-up on the home or vehicle that the client might be seeking to purchase by way of a loan. The vehicle or mortgage usually remains in the name of the bank, until the principal loan including the mark-up has been paid. In the case of a business loan, instead of charging interest over the time that the principal amount is loaned out, an Islamic bank will demand a certain percentage of the borrower's business profits for an indefinite period of time. So it is the principle of sharing and the bank is a partner who obtains losses as profits. This is because of a law in the Islamic financial theory that you are not allowed to enjoy the profits if you did not take its risk based on the famous tradition, al-kharaj bi damaan - return is determined by exposure to risk/liability. Under a conventional interest based loan it is possible to "call" the loan if the interest rate drops and the borrower finds that he can find cheaper financing (i.e. pays off the entire loan before the end of its term, thus paying less interest). However, there is no way to call a loan issued by an Islamic bank. Thus, while the borrower from an Islamic bank is protected against interest rate increases, the borrower cannot benefit from interest rate drops.
In theory, Islamic banking should be synonymous with full-reserve banking, with banks achieving a 100% reserve ratio [1]. However in practice this is rarely the case, another point of strong criticism of "Islamic Banking".
[edit] Welfare
Social welfare, unemployment, public debt and globalization have been re-examined from the perspective of Islamic norms and values. Islamic banks have grown recently in the Muslim world but are a very small share of the global economy compared to the Western debt banking paradigm. It remains to be seen[vague] if they will find niches although hybrid approaches, e.g. Grameen Bank which applies classical Islamic values but uses conventional lending practices, are much lauded by some proponents of modern human development theory.
US patent US20030233324A1Declining balance co-ownership financing arrangement. This discloses an allegedly Sharia compliant financing arrangement for home purchases and refinances that does not involve the payment of interest. WO patent WO06068837A2 Controlling a Computer System Enabling ShariaCompliant Financing. This discloses an improved computer system for carrying out Sharia compliant financial transactions.
[edit] Criticism
Its popularity notwithstanding, critics of Islamic economics have not been sparing. It has been attacked for its alleged "incoherence, incompleteness, impracticality, and irrelevance;" [29] [30] driven by "cultural identity" rather than problem solving.[31] Others have dismissed it as "a hodgepodge of populist and socialist ideas," in theory and "nothing more than inefficient state control of the economy and some almost equally ineffective redistribution policies," in practice. [32] In a political and regional context where Islamist and ulema claim to have an opinion about everything, it is striking how little they have to say about this most central of
human activities, beyond repetitious pieties about how their model is neither capitalist nor socialist.[33]
[edit] References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. ^ Islam and Economic Justice: A 'Third Way' Between Capitalism and Socialism? ^ How Do We Know Islam Will Solve the Problems of Poverty and Inequality? ^ Roy, The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press, 1994, p.132 ^ Roy, The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press, 1994, p.132 ^ Schirazi, Asghar, Constitution of Iran, (1997), p.170 ^ Michael Bonner, "Poverty and Economics in the Quran", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxv:3 (Winter, 2005), 391406 7. ^ The Cambridge economic history of Europe, p. 437. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521087090. 8. ^ Subhi Y. Labib (1969), "Capitalism in Medieval Islam", The Journal of Economic History 29 (1), pp. 7996 [81, 83, 85, 90, 93, 96]. 9. ^ a b Jairus Banaji (2007), "Islam, the Mediterranean and the rise of capitalism", Historical Materialism 15 (1), pp. 4774, Brill Publishers. 10. ^ Robert Sabatino Lopez, Irving Woodworth Raymond, Olivia Remie Constable (2001), Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231123574. 11. ^ Timur Kuran (2005), "The Absence of the Corporation in Islamic Law: Origins and Persistence", American Journal of Comparative Law 53, pp. 785834 [798 9]. 12. ^ Subhi Y. Labib (1969), "Capitalism in Medieval Islam", The Journal of Economic History 29 (1), pp. 7996 [923]. 13. ^ Ray Spier (2002), "The history of the peer-review process", Trends in Biotechnology 20 (8), p. 357-358 [357]. 14. ^ 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, pp. 263 93. Cambridge University Press. 15. ^ Samir Amin (1978), "The Arab Nation: Some Conclusions and Problems", MERIP Reports 68, pp. 314 [8, 13]. 16. ^ Schumpeter (1954) p 136 mentions his his sociology, others, including Hosseini (2003) emphasize him as well 17. ^ Weiss (1995) p29-30 18. ^ Weiss (1995) p31 quotes Muqaddimah 2:276-278 19. ^ Weiss (1995), p. 31, quotes Muqaddimah 2: 272-273 20. ^ Weiss (1995), p. 33 21. ^ The Economic Life of Islam 22. ^ Michael Bonner, "Poverty and Economics in the Quran", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxv:3 (Winter, 2005), 391406 23. ^ Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, Basic Books, c1984, p.167-8 24. ^ Revolutionary Surge and Quiet Demise of Islamic Economics in Iran 25. ^ The Renewal of Islamic Law
26. ^ Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, Basic Books, c1984, p.172-3 27. ^ Revolutionary Surge and Quiet Demise of Islamic Economics in Iran 28. ^ Roy, The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press, 1994, p.133 29. ^ Sohrab Behada, "Property Rights in Contemporary Islamic Economic Thought, Review of Social Economy, Summer 1989 v.47, (pp.185-211) 30. ^ Kuran, "The Economic Impact of Islamic Fundamentalism," in Marty and Appleby Fundamentalisms and the State, U of Chicago Press, 1993, p.302-41 31. ^ "The Discontents of Islamic Economic Mortality" by Timur Kuran, American Economic Review, 1996, p.438-442 32. ^ Halliday, Fred, 100 Myths about the Middle East, Saqi Books, 2005 p.89 33. ^ Halliday, Fred, 100 Myths about the Middle East, Saqi Books, 2005 p.89
[edit] Bibliography
Muhammad Nijatullah Siddiqui, Muslim Economic Thinking, (Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK) Syed Nawab Haider Naqi, Ethics and Economics: An Islamic Synthesis, (Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK) M. Umar Chapra, Islam and the Economic Challenge, (Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK) Angelo M. Venardos, Islamic Banking & Finance in South-East Asia: Its Development & Future, (World Scientific Publishing, Singapore) Abbas Mirakhor, Theoretical Studies in Islamic Banking and Finance, (Islamic Publications International) Fatwa Dewan Syariah Nasional - Majelis Ulama Indonesia Fatwa about many issues in Islamic Economics Islamic Economics book list Islamic Banking references Islamic Banking references (GDRC) Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, Basic Books, c1984 Behdad, Sohrab and Farhad Nomani, eds., Islam and the Everyday World: Public Policy Dilemmas, Routledge, 2006, ISBN 0-415-36823-5 Halliday, Fred, 100 Myths about the Middle East, Saqi Books, 2005 Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam Harvard University Press, 1994
[edit] Torts
A. Basir Bin Mohamad. "The Islamic Law of Tort: A Study of the Owner and Possessor of Animals with Special Reference to the Civil Codes of the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and Iraq" in Arab Law Quarterly V.16, N.4 2001 __________. "Vicarious Liability: A Study of the Liability of the Guardian and his Ward in the Islamic Law of Tort" Arab Law Quarterly V. 17, N.1 2002
Immanuel Naveh. "The Tort of Injury and Dissolution of Marriage at the Wife's Initiative in Egyptian Mahkamat al-Naqd Rulings" in Islamic Law and Society Volume 9, Number 1, 2002 Islamic law of tort Liaquat Ali Khan Niazi, 1988 An outline of Islamic law of tort Abdul-Qadir Zubair, 1990
Ibn Khaldun Islamic philosophy o Early Islamic philosophy o Modern Islamic philosophy Islamization of knowledge Islamic democracy Green economics Economy of the OIC
Global Islamic Finance Infocentre The Zakat Pages What is Riba?, Exclusive on the subject of Riba (ar-Riba, usury, interest), answering Why Riba was prohibited? and The definition of Riba. Muslim Investor: A community site on Islamic investment, banking, finance and insurance Riba, Interest and Six Hadiths: Do We Have a Definition or a Conundrum? by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq Toward Defining and Understanding Riba by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq Corporate Islamic Finance - An Assessment by Dinar Standard Zakat and a New Islamic Money System for the 21st Century - Podcast The Riba-Interest Equation and Islam: Reexamination of the Traditional Arguments by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq The Islamic Finance Blog Muslim mortgages in Britain Information on Islamic Finance Alternative energy for funds Extract from Jane's Transport Finance about Islamic finance, 29 August 2006 Risk Sharing In Islamic Finance Training,seminars and information on Islamic banking and finance Liberal and progressive Islam from Alan Godlas' Islamic resources page at the University of Georgia Mahmoud el-Gamal, Rice University, Houston, Texas, "An Economic Explanation of the Prohibition of Riba in Classical Islamic Jurisprudence." Islamic Finance Affairs - Articles, Answers, and News on Islamic Finance Dow Jones Islamic Market indexes
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