The Development of Islamic Economic

Historically, the discussion of economic had already played on the lips of the great scholars and also well-written on the literatures. Though they did not use economic terminologies like inflation, recession and unemployment etc, but their works were actually addressing those issues. All of the problems arose on the earth of Muslim community had been well-addressed by them through effective solutions rooted by the principle guided by teaching of Qur’an and Sunnah. A large number of past scholars including Abu Yusof (d. 182/798), al-Mas’udi (d. 346/957), al-Mawardi (d. 450/1058), Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064), al-Sarakhsi (d. 483/1090), al-Tusi (d. 485/1093), al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328), Ibn al-Ukhuwwah (d. 729/1329), Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751/1350), al-Shatibi (d. 790/1388), Ibn Khaldun (d. 808/1406), al-Maqrizi (d. 845/1442), al-Dawwani (d. 906/1501), and Shah Waliyullah (d. 1176/1762) made valuable contribution over the centuries (Chapra, 2001).

In the late centuries of 20^th, the works of constructing Islamic economic into a discipline like others economic thought was done actively. The convening of the first International Conference on Islamic Economics in 1976 had shown to be catalyst of all others following works on Islamic economic rightly upon the foundation such as definitions, theories and practices are constructed gradually. During the initial years, the subject was discussed in general terms in a broader context of religion and sociology (Iqbal and Ali, 2007). The manifestation of Islamic economics, however, ended up mainly in the financial sector which experienced rapid growth and became global phenomenon in a short time (Habib, 2009).

There were so many works have been done previously in the initial years of Islamic economics. However, many critiques have been forwarded upon that works recently that made up upon the entire dimension of Islamic economics. The lack of sound theoretical and empirical foundations of Islamic economics has raised censure from critics and concerns from proponents (Habib, 2009). This can be proven by the statement of Kuran (1995), where he asserts that Islamic economics does not have a comprehensive framework for modern economy and as such, the experiment of Islamic economic has established isolated institutions creating an Islamic sub-economy. Similarly, Khan points out the disconnection between theory and practice in Islamic economics.

Therefore, the following discussion will be explained further on few areas under the Islamic economics that have been critiqued by many scholars in which they are not intentionally to condemn it but rather request for further improvement on that area in the future.

References:

1. Mohammad Umar Chapra, “What is Islamic Economics?” Retrieved fromhttp://irtipms.org/PubDetE.asp?pub=66
2. Munawar Iqbal & Salman Syed Ali, Advances in Islamic Economics and Finance, retrieved from http://irtipms.org/PubDetE.asp?pub=230&search=advances%20in%20Islamic%20Economic&mode=allwords
3. Habib Ahmed, “Islamization of Economics and Knowledge: A new Instituional Economics’ Perspective”, International Conference on Islamic Economics and Economies of the OIC countries 2009, p.3

Abu Mardhiyyah (Undergraduate Student)

Department of Economic

International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM)

a)