Islam and the Spirits of Capitalism: Competing Articulations of the Islamic Economy

• DOI: 10.1177/0032329218776014
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Author: Aisalkyn Botoeva
• Date: 01 June 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329218776014

Politics & Society

2018, Vol. 46(2) 235 –264

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0032329218776014

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Article

Islam and the Spirits

of Capitalism: Competing

Articulations of the Islamic

Economy

Aisalkyn Botoeva

Harvard Law School

Abstract

Why has the Islamic economy, as a model of socioeconomic development, gained

traction as a viable option? The existing literature suggests that the Islamic economy

has been popularized by a combination of factors, including anticolonial movements,

a global renewal of religiosity, and the activities of new social strata who merge

piety with capitalist orientations. These approaches, however, tend to homogenize

social actors, subsuming them under the overarching label of Islamism. In contrast,

this article employs the lens of “intra-hegemonic struggles” to identify three

competing orientations of Islamism and their manifestation in the economy. Drawing

on eighteen months of fieldwork in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, it argues that this

contestation motivates diverse segments of the society to create and engage in the

Islamic economy, rather than any single state-driven or identity-based movement.

The article synthesizes three otherwise isolated bodies of work: the political

sociology of articulation, new theories of Islamism, and the concept of imaginaries

from economic sociology.

Keywords

Islamic economy, capitalism, political articulation, imaginaries, post-Soviet Central Asia

Corresponding Author:

Aisalkyn Botoeva, Harvard Law School, Austin Hall MZ 216, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA

02138, USA.

Email: abotoeva@law.harvard.edu

776014PASXXX10.1177/0032329218776014Politics & SocietyBotoeva

research-article2018

236 Politics & Society 46(2)

As we discussed his work, my respondent, the executive director of the Islamic

Development Bank in Kazakhstan, emphasized that “Islamic finance is a recipe for cur-

ing the economy. And if someone does not like the words ‘Shariah’ or ‘Islamic,’ these

are just equivalents of ‘ethical.’”1 This excerpt illustrates how advocates of the Islamic

economy weave together religious precepts and profit-oriented goals. Through such

statements, they promote the Islamic economy as a solution to the systemic problems

of the conventional capitalist system. In the past two decades, the Islamic economy has

been embraced by a diverse set of economic actors in countries across the post-Soviet

space, including in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the focus in this article. Only three

decades ago the very idea of “doing business” was legally and normatively prohibited

in the entire Soviet region, let alone “doing business the Muslim way.” By 2008, how-

ever, at the time of the global financial crisis, President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan

declared that the “Islamic financial and economic model is stable and viable.”2 Echoing

that sentiment, Omurbek Babanov, then vice-prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, stated that

“the development and spread of Islamic principles of finance and economy would yield

fast and effective returns, bearing a direct impact on economic development and social

welfare.”3 Furthermore, entrepreneurs of different stripes switched from conventional

to halal, Islamic, or otherwise Shariah-compliant modes of operation.

This growth in the region mirrored the mushrooming of such markets in Turkey,

Malaysia, and the Gulf States, where the Islamic economy had already been imple-

mented by business communities (with support from governments) since at least the

1970s. Interest in an Islamic model is not confined to Muslim-majority countries, and

even Western financial institutions such as HSBC and the International Monetary Fund

have sought to incorporate some practices of Islamic banking, though doing so requires

that financial transactions comply with additional religious tenets and sociolegal

norms.4 A report by Reuters notes that in 2015 the global Islamic economy totaled over

1.9 trillion USD in revenue across sectors such as food, apparel, and media, while rev-

enues from halal-certified products stood at 415 billion USD and Islamic finance

amassed 2 trillion USD in assets.5 To investigate these trends and the broader recogni-

tion of the Islamic economy, this article explores why governments, financial compa-

nies, and entrepreneurs would see the Islamic economy as an attractive and viable

option.

The question is particularly puzzling if we consider the dissonance between the

seemingly rapid expansion of this religiously inspired economic model and the uncer-

tainties that it entails. Skeptics worldwide have warned that there is no empirical evi-

dence that Islamic business is safer from risk or moral hazard; neither have Islamic

market niches yet proved to be more profitable than conventional markets.6 Furthermore,

even ardent advocates of the Islamic economy debate what constitutes “truly Islamic”

business tenets and how to implement them in practice. Accordingly, I explore why key

market actors chose to adopt Islamic business in contemporary societies, despite these

ambiguities. Whose interests and profits are served by this religiously inspired model

for business and socioeconomic development, based in theory on “principles of justice,

integrity and equality?”7

The core principles of the Islamic economy, broadly defined, stipulate that market

actors find ethical means of earning their livelihood and accumulating wealth and that