Many Years After: Evaluating the Theory and Application of Islamic Economics
摘要
The history of Islamic economic thinking and its application to Islamic finance has turned up in fiasco over the last many years. This area of thinking once started as a reaction to confined criticism of mainstream economics did not carry the discourse far enough to establish the true foundation upon which Islamic worldview rests. The epistemic worldview of oneness of God and that of the divine laws could not be understood in its substantive conceptual and applied contexts. Thus, the very foundation of Islamic thinking and application in ‘everything’ particularized to Islamic economics and finance as a special case, never took shape and form. A much aspired for revolutionary unfolding of Islamic thinking never came about. Within the same purview of a failed experiment, Islamic banking and other financial institutions operated in the name of Islamic economics and finance. But they cut a sorry figure when it came to the application of the principle of unity of the divine law in the practical facets of a participatory socioeconomic order. Even the principal Islamic financing instruments have been abandoned. Instead, secondary financing instruments questionable in accordance with the purpose of so-called Islamic Law, Maqasid as-Shari’ah, were practiced. This chapter provides a revolutionary new worldview for the Islamic ‘everything’. Within this, the Islamic banking, economics, and finance are remodeled and the prevalent theory and practice seriously questioned.