Medieval Islamic Economic Thought

This book is a collection of papers on the origins of economic thought discovered in the writings of some prominent Islamic scholars, during the five centuries prior to the Latin Scholastics, who include St. Thomas Aquinas. This period of time was labelled by Joseph Schumpeter as representing the 'great gap' in economic history. Unfortunately, this 'gap' is well embedded in most relevant literature. However, during this period the Islamic civilization was one of the most fertile grounds for intellectual developments in various disciplines, including economics, and this book attempts to fill that blind-spot in the history of economic thought.

This unique book highlights the contributions made by Muslim scholars to economic thought throughout history, a topic that has received relatively little attention in mainstream economics. Abdul Azim Islahi discusses various ways in which Muslim ideas

Assembling contributions from top thinkers in the field, thiscompanion offers a comprehensive and sophisticated exploration ofthe history of economic thought. The volume has a threefold focus:the history of economic thought, the history of economics as adiscipline, and the historiography of economic thought. Provides sophisticated introductions to a vast array oftopics. Focuses on a unique range of topics, including the history ofeconomic thought, the history of the discipline of economics, andthe historiography of economic thought.

The possible indebtedness of political economy to fourth-century Greek thinkers has been widely debated; the contribution of Islam, on the other hand, is consistently forgotten. This volume addresses this neglect by examining in three parts the following questions: Is there a school of economic thought that can be considered specifically 'Arab', or have the Arabs succeeded in combining the Greek heritage with other, more oriental currents? Muslim economic thought has enriched the Hellenic contribution to economic thought in the areas of government of the kingdom by the caliph, of the city and the household organisation; the Arab concept of tadbîr should be examined in relation to each of these three levels. In rejecting profit, usury, egoism and monopoly, and in preaching moderation, altruism, the practice of fair prices, and unselfishness, Islam inaugurated an 'economic system' which has derived from that of the Greeks and which laid the basis for pre-capitalist thought.

This comprehensive survey of Islamic economic thought covers the development of ideas from the early Muslim jurists to the period of the Umayyads and Abbasids. The economic concerns of the Ottomans, Safawids and Moghuls are examined, as is the profusion of more recent writing.

A historical analysis of economic thought in Islamic tradition which interrogates contemporary Islamic economics as a hybrid system.