Librarian and staff of Maulana Azad Library, the West Asian Studies Library of the Aligarh Muslim University, where I commenced this work; the Librarian and the staff of the King Abdul Aziz University Library, where I completed this work; the London University Library, Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the British Museum Library, London, where I obtained some valuable references – all deserve my sincere appreciation and gratitude.
I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, ex-President King Abdul Aziz University, and now the Secretary General of the Muslim World League, who took a keen personal interest in my research and arranged for my stay in the Kingdom with a view to providing me access to scholars and books available here. I am also grateful to Dr. Muhammad M. O. Jamjoom, formerly the Dean, College of Engineering, and now the Secretary General, King Abdul Aziz University, whose patronage enabled me to devote myself to research along with teaching in the Department of Socio-Technical Studies.
Finally, I am grateful to the Islamic Foundation for publishing this work.
One who is not grateful to human beings,
will not be grateful to Allah.
The primary aim of this book is to study the economic concepts of Ibn Taimīyah and, in doing so, to relate his concepts and theories to his times and to establish their relevance now.
Ibn Taimīyah was deeply involved in public life. His views on many social problems of his age reflect a pragmatic orientation, and in consequence his impact on succeeding generations has been profound. Adequate attention has not been paid to the contribution Muslim thinkers have made to economic thought. In the case of Ibn Taimīyah, though there are some studies of his life and works, they have failed to focus adequately on his economic concepts and theories.
This study should prove useful to economists in general and to students of the Islamic economic system in particular. It should help us understand how one of the most brilliant Islamic scholars of the past handled such issues as property right, prices, money, interest, partnership and other economic organizations, wages, taxation, state regulation of economic activities, etc., in the context of securing justice for all in the light of the relevant teachings of Islam.
This work is a revised version of a doctoral dissertation in Economics submitted at the Aligarh Muslim University in 1981. For transliteration of Arabic terms into the Roman script I have followed the Library of Congress system, except in the case of a few words already established in English. All dates, unless otherwise indicated, are given in the Gregorian calendar.
| King Abdul Aziz University,Jeddah12 Rabī‘ al-Awwal 140624 November 1985 | A. A. Islahi |
I
It is quite natural, in the context of our present endeavour to Islamize our economies, to turn to some of the best brains of the past for inspiration and guidance. To me, the choice of Ibn Taimīyah seems to be very appropriate indeed. Standing midway between us and the age of revelation – he lived in the last third of the seventh and first quarter of the eighth century after Hijra – Ibn Taimīyah had a firm grasp of the achievements of Islamic scholarship that preceded him. Though largely treading in the footsteps of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, the last of the founders of the four main schools of Islamic law, he had enough independence of mind and catholicity of vision to draw upon the other schools and scholars to arrive at his own opinion on a matter. This gave him a stature way above almost all scholars and jurists who followed him. Though a parallel may be recognized in the unique contributions of Shāh Walīullāh of Delhi, who lived in the twelfth century after Hijra, Ibn Taimīyah remains unsurpassed in the comprehensiveness of his works and clarity of his vision on what constitutes Islamic living.
Basically a teacher, circumstances forced Ibn Taimīyah to put on a soldier’s uniform as they also pushed him into the vortex of controversy and polemics. As the historically-rich first chapter of Dr. Islahi’s book brings out so well, Ibn Taimīyah was born in an age of turmoil. The decay in Islamic society had already set in with all that it implied by way of stultification of creative thinking on law and society. As his voluminous Fatāwā reflect, the intermingling of races and cultures and the fast changing political conditions were creating a new scenario in trade and commerce, agriculture and industry. Men were entering into new types of contracts and social relations were becoming increasingly more complex. With his intellectual roots secure in Sharī‘ah, Ibn Taimīyah answered the many queries emanating from these complex situations with rare understanding and sympathy. Here are some examples:
If a person hires what (gives its) benefits through being hired out to other people, e.g. (public) bath, hotel, barracks and the like and then this conventional benefit decreases, for example, because of migration of the people living in the vicinity and the (number of) customers declines due to fear or decay, or because the political authority shifts them (elsewhere), or (due to) some similar reasons, then the rent due from the person hiring (the premises) will be decreased in proportion to the decrease in the conventionally (expected) benefits (Fatāwā,* Vol. 30, p. 311).
The borrower is obliged to repay the lender in the country in which he contracted the loan, He should not place the burden of travelling (to realize the loan) and transporting (what was lent) on the lender. If he says, ‘I will not repay you except in a different country’, he would be liable to defray, according to conventional standards, any cost incurred by the lender (in travelling and transporting) (Fatāwā, Vol. 29, p. 530).
He was asked about a man lending some dirhams to another man to be repaid to him in another country; is it permissible for him to do so or not? He replied ‘… the correct (answer) is that it is permissible, because the lender seeks the benefit of security in transporting his dirhams to that country and the borrower too, would have been benefited from repaying it in that country, being saved from the risks involved in the passage. Hence there are benefits to both of them in this (mode of) borrowing. The Law-giver does not prohibit what benefits them all. He prohibits only what hurts them’ (Fatāwā, Vol. 29, pp. 530–1).
He was asked about fulūs (i.e. copper coins) bought for cash paid on the spot and sold for credit at a higher price; is it permissible to do so or not? He replied: ‘All praise be to Allah, on this matter – of exchange of current copper coins with dirhams (of silver) – there is a well-known controversy among the scholars …
The more authentic (opinion) is to prohibit it as the copper coins, when they have gained currency, take on the same position as the money proper and become a standard of value for people’s wealth’ (Fatāwā, Vol. 29, pp. 468–9).
As a matter of fact, what contemporary Islam needs most with respect to the economy is a clear vision of what is desired and how it can be brought about. A perusal of the book will demonstrate how clear Ibn Taimīyah was on both these points. We need a well provisioned society from which poverty is banished and welfare is ensured for all. The way to realize this objective is freedom of enterprise and property, constrained by moral laws and supervised by a just state enforcing the divine laws – the Sharī‘ah. Those who seek a just regime must enforce the Sharī‘ah – the whole of it. In doing so they will be frequently called upon to apply the Sharī‘ah principles to new issues arising from changing circumstances, especially in economic affairs. This is where the jurist faces the real challenge: not to lose sight of the real purpose of law – justice and human felicity – while applying his legal principles to new situations. As this book exemplifies, Ibn Taimīyah met this challenge
