Islam’s Gift: An Economy of Spiritual Development

• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12272
• Author: Asad Zaman
• Date: 01 March 2019

Islam’s Gift: An Economy

of Spiritual Development

By AsAd ZAmAn*

“For what profits a man if he gains t he whole world but loses his own

soul?”

AbstrAct. According to the standard narrative, economics is an

objective and scientific study of universal laws applicable to economic

affairs of modern societies. After a brief introduction, the second

section of the article presents a counter-narrative that disputes this

claim, and provides an alternative point of view that situates modern

economics within its European historical, political, and social context.

We briefly discuss why the conventional methodology of modern

economics makes false claims to objectivity and universality. The third

section provides an alternative methodology that is based on the

recognition that human behavior is inherently and unavoidably

normative, and any study of human beings and societies must take

this into account. The fourth section of the article brings out the norms

concealed within the foundations of modern economics, since the

avowed methodology does not permit explicit and open expression of

these norms. The fifth section describes Islamic views that describe

the normative ideals for our personal and social lives. In particular,

Islam aims at the development of the potential for excellence that

every human being is born with. It does not aim at accumulation of

American Jour nal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Ma rch, 2019).

DOI: 10 .1111/ajes.122 72

© 2019 American Journa l of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*Vice Chancellor, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Taught economics and econometrics at Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Johns

Hopkins, California Institute of Technology, and Bilkent University, Ankara. His text-

book Statistical Foundations of Econometric Techniques (Academic Press 1996) is

widely used as a reference in advanced graduate courses. He is managing editorof

International Econometric Review andPakistan Development Review. His research on

Islamic economics has been influential in shaping the field. His publications in top-

ranked journals like Annals of Statistics, Journal of Econometrics, Econometric Theory,

and the Journal of Labor Economics have more than a thousand citations as per Google

Scholar. Email: asad.zaman@alumni.stanford.edu.

444 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

wealth and material possessions. Nor does it aim at achievement of

happiness through the maximization of pleasure achieved by

consumption. The sixth section describes the transformational

strategies required for spiritual progress in different dimensions of our

human existence. The seventh section describes some of the

institutional structures required in the economic realm to assist in the

achievement of the transformation towards the normative ideals. The

final section explains how we should use our unique and precious

lives to aim for higher goals than mere consumption of goods and

acquisition of wealth.

Foreword

As Edward Said has explained in Orientalism, the conquest of the

globe by Europe colors all European productions of knowledge about

the Orient. Because of the dominance of European educational sys-

tems, these Eurocentric views have also been absorbed and assimi-

lated by Muslims. This has caused great difficulties in the development

of Islamic economics because Muslim scholars have attempted to rec-

oncile two diametrically opposite views. European views give primacy

to the material dimensions of human existence, whereas Islamic views

give primacy to the spiritual dimensions. I have previously explained

how this attempt has prevented the emergence of genuine Islamic the-

ories as well as genuine Islamic institutions that embody these theories

(Zaman 2012a, 2015). The majority of the literature on Islamic eco-

nomics attempts the impossible task of making minor modifications to

Western economic theories to align them with Islamic views. Genuine

Islamic economics is the theoretical framework for the ongoing effort

to replace colonial institutional structures by original Islamic ones.

The editor asked me to write an article explaining Islamic eco-

nomics from an authentic Islamic viewpoint, uncontaminated by

Eurocentric perspectives. I wrote initial drafts with sensibilities of a

modern secular audience in mind, and tried to avoid stepping on

toes. But this has the natural consequence of diluting and modifying

the message in subtle ways. After a sequence of attempts at achiev-

ing greater authenticity, I arrived at this article, which disregards the

conventional boundaries of Western intellectual discourse. As many

445Islam’s Gift: An Economy of Spiritual Development

authors have documented in detail, the transition from a traditional

society based on Christian values to the present day secular modern

society was a revolution in ways of thinking and acting. Islamic views

on economic organization would be familiar to pre-modern thinkers,

but alien and strange to modern scholars. Understanding it will re-

quire “walking in alien moccasins for a mile.”

Introduct ion

Although modern economics presents itself as “value free,” universal,

and outside the influence of culture, that is not the case. Timothy

Mitchell (2002) writes:

The possibility of soci al science is based upon taking cer tain histori-

cal experiences of the West as the template for a universal knowledge.

Economics offers a particu larly clear illustration of th is. Certain form s of

social exchange, contract law, disposition of property, corporate powers,

methods of calculation, dispo ssession of labor, relationship between pub-

lic and private, organization of in formation, and government regulation

that were formalized in Western Europe i n the nineteenth centur y as

“market exchange” were abstracted by economics into the framework of

a social science.

As Mitchell recognizes clearly, modern economic theory takes cer-

tain background institutional str uctures for granted, and is strongly

shaped by Western historical experiences. Nonetheless, the theory

claims for itself a universal status as a sci ence, free of its historical,

cultural and institut ional context. Since Islamic economics arises out

of extremely different historical circum stances, and is based on an

extremely different set of institutional str uctures, we must start by

disputing the claims of universality m ade by Western social science.

Modern social sciences took their current shape in the early 20th

century and represent a radical break from the past, even though

the dominant narratives of the social sciences create the appearance

of continuity and links to antiquity. We must unearth and expose

the framing assumptions of modern Western economics since Islamic

economics is built on radically different foundations. In particular, the

question of why Western economics claims universal status must be

examined, especially since this claim is trivially easy to refute.