A Comparative Analysis of the Western and Islamic Fundamentals of Economics

Abstract

Since the rise of the western system of economics there have occurred tens of economic crisis throughout the world. Despite repeated reviews of the system by the World Bank and the other relevant international institutions the condition remains the same and vulnerability of the western model continues rising. The latest but not the last among all such collapses was the one occurred in 2008 and caused loss of trillions of dollars. Therefore, it may safely be said that the western economic system has not been able to provide sustainable solution to the human’s economic problems so far, despite its centuries long trials and tribulations. This fact is increasingly and universally realized and recognized by the leading economists and academicians of our time. On the other side, Islamic fundamentals of economic, tested and tried for over a millennium by several Muslim dynasties and great empires including Abbasid and Ottomans, never posed such economic challenges to the world. Although the decline of these Muslim Empires can certainly be ascribed to the political fragmentation yet not to the economic principles, in vogue, in those vast Muslim regions. Thus, the economic principles and precepts stand today as a beacon as ever before since revealed and recorded in the last holy scripture.  Therefore, this article is an attempt to review these golden principles and precedents in comparison with the Western model in order to provide an insight into the unique economic foundation laid by the Prophet of Islam on the soil of Arabia which is arguably needed today to relieve the mankind from the ‘moral-free Economic Order’ comprising over centuries.

Keywords: Economy; Crisis; West; Islam; Finance.