The Future of Economics. M. Umer Chapra
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made with great insight, clarity and courage. One may disagree with a point here or a surmise there, but I have no reservation in saying that Dr. Chapra has broken fresh ground in this difficult area. I am confident his analysis and prescription will go a long way in inspiring, even provoking, others to follow the trail and come up with fresh approaches to understand the past and plan the future. This blend of economics and history, especially from an Islamic perspective, is a seminal contribution to our literature. Dr. Chapra’s work also represents an effort to marry idealism with realism, a quality one finds rarely actualized in contemporary writings.
Dr. Chapra is rightly concerned about the future of economics, as much as he is about the future of the Muslim ummah. The message of the book is that while economics needs moral enrichment from an Islamic perspective so as to make it really useful for mankind in its search for a just world order, the Muslim ummah also needs to become more serious about economics’ history, and its own deficiencies if it wants to inaugurate a new chapter in its life. All of us must be prepared to face hard facts and try to get rid of wishful thinking and simple platitudes. I hope this voice of sanity will not go unheeded.
| Islamabad | Khurshid Ahmad |
| 29 Dhū al-Qaʿdah 1420 | |
| 6 March 2000 |
Questions and Acknowledgements
Every nation has a direction [or vision] towards which it turns; you, therefore, try to excel in all that is good.
(al-Qur’ān, 2: 148)1
We wish to bestow Our favours on those who have been oppressed on earth; to make them leaders and heirs and to establish them firmly on earth.
(al-Qur’ān, 28: 5–6)
If Islam can be shown to be capable of providing fruitful vision to illuminate the modern conscience, then all mankind, and not only Muslims, have a stake in the outcome.
(Marshall Hodgson)2
Does economics have a role to play in the realization of a society’s vision? This is a crucial question the answer to which depends on the direction economics may take in the future. However, once we talk of the vision, then there arise related questions of whether different societies may have different visions, and whether these differences are reflected in the approach to Social Sciences in those societies. Muslims have always felt that Islam has a vision of its own and, accordingly, several centuries ago, during the upsurge of the Islamic civilization, began to elaborate the contours of a social, political and economic system that would be conducive to the realization of this vision. However, when the Muslims became subject to a process of decline, followed by foreign occupation, it was no longer possible to even think of realizing that vision. In this respect, the development of the Social Sciences with an Islamic perspective suffered a severe setback. The vision has, however, risen to the surface once again following the independence gained by Muslim countries, and the development of Social Sciences, including economics, in conformity with this paradigm.
A number of questions are, therefore, being raised. The first and foremost concerns the vision itself – what is it, and how does it differ from conventional economics and its offshoots of welfare, grants, social, humanistic, and institutional economics, all of which developed in the West during the period of Muslim decline? A vision essentially indicates a perception of what a society ‘ought to be’ about. Life would be very pleasant indeed if the prevailing conditions were in harmony with this vision. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. There is usually a significant gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’. The question that, therefore, arises is how to bridge the gap? Can this be done by merely analyzing ‘what is’, or is it also necessary to figure out why the ‘is’ is not as close to what ‘ought to be’? Should the nature and mechanics of social, economic and political change that are necessary to bridge the gap also be demonstrated? Since the Islamic vision is basically moral and egalitarian and the paradigm on which it is based religious, there arises the question of whether it is possible to build science on a religious paradigm. If the answer is in the affirmative, then we get into the perplexing question of why the Muslim world slid backward in science and technology after making valuable contributions for more than 400 years? Was this reversal due to Islam or to other factors? These and other questions are addressed in the Introduction and the first four Chapters of this book.
However, no society operates in an historical vacuum. It is affected by a number of interrelated historical developments. It may not be possible to discuss a meaningful strategy for the future development of Muslim countries and the realization of the Islamic vision without tracing the historical roots of their decline and present problems. It is generally expected that efficient institutions will survive over time and that inefficient institutions be weeded out. So why did the reverse scenario take place in the Muslim world, where institutions which promoted advancement for centuries were gradually replaced by inefficient ones that promoted decline? What prevented the Muslim world from reversing this trend?
It may not be possible to provide a satisfactory answer to all these questions by resorting merely to economic variables. Accordingly, Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406) adopted a multidisciplinary approach based on socio-economic and political dynamics and circular causation to explain the Muslim decline and to suggest ways of arresting it. He made a point of taking into account a number of relevant factors including moral, political, social, institutional, demographic and historical ones. His model is discussed in Chapter 5, where an attempt is also made to briefly review some of the contributions made after him. His model is then applied to Muslim history in Chapter 6 to determine the causes of Muslim decline. This leads us to Chapter 7 which reviews the contributions made during the last few decades to economics within an Islamic perspective, now referred to as Islamic Economics. The stage is thereby set to suggest in the last Chapter a framework for the future development of this nascent discipline, so that it may help Muslim countries solve their current problems and also actualize the Islamic vision. Some repetition is inevitable in such a discussion because different aspects of the same questions come up for discussion in more than one context, and to either leave them out or treat them in an unrelated chapter is not necessarily desirable. Some of the chapters were published as journal articles prior to publication of this volume.
This book is a more detailed elaboration of some preliminary ideas expressed by me in a lecture delivered on 29 October 1990 at the premises of the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, after receiving the Bank’s Award for Islamic Economics. This has since been published by the Bank as a monograph under the title, What is Islamic Economics? Although I have made an effort to keep this current work simple so as to make it accessible to the non-economist, I have nonetheless not found it possible to totally avoid the well-known technical terms commonly used in economics.
As in my previous writings, my debt to my wife, Khairunnisa, is immense and immeasurable. A substantial part of the credit for this book goes to her for her constant help and encouragement and for taking over a number of my household responsibilities so as to give me the freedom to complete this task.
A number of scholars read a preliminary draft of the manuscript and made valuable comments, all of which have helped considerably in improving the final version. Especial thanks in this respect go to Dr. Murad Hofmann, former German Ambassador to Algeria and Morocco; Prof. Samuel Hayes III, of the Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University; Prof. Rodney Wilson of the University of Durham (UK); Prof. Alejandro V. Lorca Corrons of the Universidad Autonoma, Madrid; Professors M. Nejatullah Siddiqi, Anas Zarqa and Rafiq al-Misri of the Centre for Research in Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah; Dr. Maʿbid al-Jarhi, Director, IRTI, Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah; Dr. Iraj Toutounchian, Department of Economics,