Resources

Wan Aimran, Adi Setia and Aliff Basri

Positive resistance to structural greed is imperative, not simply due to its debilitating effects impacting on our livelihoods on a day to day basis, but also because it impinges upon our way of being in this world as Muslims and Christians. A recognition that the economy is simply a means to higher ends—such as happiness, belonging and security—can serve as a good basis for an interfaith dialogue towards overcoming structural greed.

Keywords: Structural greed, economics, gift economy, Christians, Mus- lims, interfaith dialogue.

“[Want] cannot be wholly dispelled, for it sits there with its mouth open, making incessant demands, and even if it is gorged with riches, it must still remain there, waiting to be satisfied...nature demands very little, whereas greed is never satisfied. So, if riches cannot dispel want, and if indeed they create their own need, why should you men imagined that they provide sufficiency?”

(Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy)¹

Prologue

Positive resistance to structural greed is imperative not simply due to its debilitating effects impacting on our livelihoods on a day to day basis, but also because it impinges upon our way of being in this world as Muslims and Christians. A recognition that the economy is simply a means to higher ends— such as happiness, belonging and security—should make us realize that merely changing the means, for instance by substituting one form of livelihood or economic system with another, does not constitute meaningful change and genuine progress. The fact that the sheer multiplicity of our means has clouded our vision about the proper ends signals how our very way of seeing the world around us has been co-opted to serve these means at the expense of ends. This is exemplified by the social legitimatization of vices such as greed and pride (rationalized as growth and development), through the exaltation of individuals and corporations that embody such traits or through our witting and unwitting involvement in an economic system that profits from and runs on these very traits.

The destruction of true knowledge has robbed us of our ability to discern between what is good and what is bad, and even if we do, we seem to have no power to act according to our discernment. It is therefore highly important to begin by recognizing our complicity in the system and to realize that change needs to be enacted on two distinct yet overlapping planes: first, with respect to how we perceive the world around us and our part and role in it; and second, with respect to how we identify those aspects of the world that we wish to transform for the better. Changing the latter (i.e., pure activism) without the prerequisite change in the former (perceptive reorientation) will only spell ruin, because our action will then not be guided by right knowledge and a clear purpose. A new (or, perhaps, renewed) purpose brings with it new concerns to attend to, new measures by which our efforts may be charted and evaluated, and a renewal of traditional wisdom and insight to guide our way. In the wake of the ongoing destruction and desolation all around us, transformation or renewal must mean working towards the restoration of the wellbeing of nature and culture that was lost.

Introduction

An interfaith dialogue on the topic of “Engaging Structural Greed Today” was held from the 25th to 30th September 2011 at the Sabah Theological Seminar (STS), Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. It was jointly organized by STS and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which saw the participation of faith leaders, economists, grass roots activists, bankers, businessmen, lecturers, intellectuals and students representing both Islam and Christianity. They hailed from various countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Kenya,

Peru, Canada, Germany, United States of America, India, Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The format of the dialogue consisted mainly of oral presentations followed by intensive discussions between speakers and participants, supplemented by small working groups (namely, the drafting/steering team, the listener group and the practitioner group). The presentations were spread over two days, interspersed with plenary and group dialogues, and organized under several themes:²

Day/Date	Session Number and Title	Presenters
Monday, 26th September	Session 1 – “Seeking Theological Frameworks: Muslim-Christian Engaging Structural Greed Today.”	Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, (Malaysia) Dr. Ulrich Duchrow, (Germany)
	Session 2 – “Common Good and Maṣlaḥa in Today’s Neo-Liberal Greed.”	Dr. Intan Syach Ichsan, (Indonesia) Dr. Herry Priyono, (Indonesia)
Tuesday, 27th September	Session 3 – “Key Theological Points: Money and Usury/Ribā, Daily Bread and Zakāt.”	Dr. Esha Myinyihaji, (Kenya) Benjamin R. Quinones (Phillipines) Athena Peralta (Phillipines)
	Session 4 – “Practicing Alternative Life: Islamic Gift Economy and Economy of Communion.”	Dr. Adi Setia, (Malaysia) Dr. Luigino Bruni, (Italy)
	Session 5 – “Micro- credit and Communities Development.”	Zakiul Faruque (Bangladesh) Lauro Milan (Peru), Hulwati Basyir (Indonesia), Peggy Mekel (Indonesia)

The dialogue can be viewed as an effort to seek points of contacts between Islam and Christianity in conceptualizing the problem of greed and the attendant issues related to it, such as the nature of man, the aims and purposes of economics, and then to offer guidance on practical and meaningful responses that may be mobilized to engage and resolve the problem. In the words of one of the leading conference participants, Dr. Michael Trice, Assistant Dean of Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, School of Theology and Ministry, Seattle University, who had the unenviable task of recording, organizing and distilling the main points of the conversations and discussions throughout the whole seminar—a task which he discharged diligently, tactfully and cheerfully with singular merit:

An under-girding theme of this conference is how we leverage the capacity of religion to challenge the wiles of economic systems that harm or destroy human well-being, and corrupt the shared worldviews of Muslims and Christians today. These worldviews share specific features, principles, values and truisms that, taken together, may well comprise rebuttal to corruptive systems, and have the ability to carve out a new, constructive voice about a shared vision from within Islam and Christianity toward a life of flourishing and well being.

In short, he proposed a two-pronged strategy: to identify and subsequently unmask the corruptive aspects of the current economic system, especially as a vehicle for structural greed; and to provide a counter-measure or positive resistance against these corruptive aspects.

On Wednesday, we were taken on a day trip to Kundasang, a two-hour bus trip away into the highlands, where we visited Luanti Fish Reflexology Centre, Nabalu Handicraft Center,³ and Sabah Tea Plantation, and concluded our excursion with lunch at the Perkasa Hotel, from where we enjoyed a gorgeous vista—despite the rather cloudy weather—of the slopes and distant peaks of Mount Kinabalu, generally considered to be the highest peak in Southeast Asia at over 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) high. The last two days were mainly focused on preparing the final common declaration of the conference, respecting its mutually agreed outcomes and the steps to be taken to move forward.

What follows comprises our report and reflection on the outcome of the conference and dialogue, and it is divided into two parts. Part 1 gives an

overview of the key points raised the presentations and subsequent discussions, while Part 2 reflects and comments on various aspects of the final conference findings.⁴

Report and Reflection: Part 1

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar (Head of Global Studies, Universiti Malaya) opened the seminar with his presentation entitled “God or Greed? A Muslim View,” in which he provided a good and succinct overview of the key issues associated with greed, some of which includes:

A descriptive definition of greed: he highlighted the story of Qārūn5in the Qurʾān ⁵ as an example of greed personified.
The notion of proper and just limits: he says, “But in the life of this world, there are limits that one should observe. The concept and practice of limits are an oft-repeated advice in the Qurʾān.”⁶
The concept of justice in a society: he listed five injunctions and prac- tices in Islam which to his mind underscore the significance of justice, namely, the prohibition of injustice, the wealth tax, the division of inheritance, the bequeathal of personal wealth for the public good, and He concluded that these injunctions are founded upon “a commitment to the equitable distribution [of wealth] and the reduc- tion of social disparities.”
The assertion that man cannot serve both God and greed at the same time, in which case if one “worships” greed and in so doing neglects God, one has then committed a form of idolatry.
The open legitimization of the culture of greed and self-servingness in the current financial, economic and political systems, and its un- abashed glorification through the propaganda of the mass media.

The most striking thing about Dr. Muzaffar Chandra’s presentation was his allusion to Qārūn as a character that has been corrupted by greed, so as to make clear and to make concrete the characteristics and harmful consequences of greed.

By examining Qārūn’s behavior as described in the Qurʾān, one can begin to have some idea of the nature of greed, namely that of covetousness,⁷ a lack of recognition and acknowledgement of limits—whether qualitatively in the sense of restraining one’s desires, or quantitatively as in the sense of the amount of things one needs or desires to have and obtain. This situation then leads to a disruption in one’s relationship with oneself (since one is ignorant of one’s own real needs and unable to discipline one’s desires), and with others (since by coveting something one deprives others of their rightful share, or indeed sacrifices what belongs to others for our own selfish gratification), and ultimately with God (since desiring more than what one needs reflects a state of insecurity in retaining what one already has and a distrust in the future bounties to be bestowed by God). This sense of disruption, or imbalance or disharmony, which originated in the individual unfolds and ripples out to affect his relationship with those around him and his relationship with God, causing injustices and oppression in its wake. Therefore, greed at the personal level will eventually have ramifications at the societal level, where it is eventually exalted as a social virtue, gradually formalized in structures and institutions, and openly promoted, and even systemically rationalized and justified in the modern academia and various economic think-tanks and research institutes, which in turn inform public policy decision making.⁸

The other point that leaves a strong impression was Dr. Muzaffar Chandra’s forceful presentation and characterization of greed as idolatry,⁹ which follows from his assertion that a human being cannot serve two masters at the same time. If one were to characterize greed as a form of idolatry, it implies that greed has the apparent capacity to bewitch man to do its bidding, to sacrifice himself or herself at its altar,¹⁰ and to cast man into the wells of

misfortune if he fails to obey its urgings.¹¹ In other words, greed sets itself up as an alternative path to salvation, although its supposed “powers” to grant satisfaction and pleasure are only confined to this world, and even that is very much doubted by those with discernment.¹²

Even so, one should not underestimate its propensity to delude and seduce people to its cause,¹³ its ability to pervert public interest laws and regulations devised to contain it, and to co-opt good individuals with good intentions into its agenda, but who lacks a big picture of its entire modus operandi that strangles and controls the levers of political, social and intellectual power.¹⁴ As Dr. Adi Setia (ViA Advisory) reminded the participants at the start of the seminar:

Since we are talking about structural greed, it is not enough to merely focus on greed at the individual or personal level, especially if the system the person is in is already corrupted. In order to really tackle structural greed, we need structural generosity.¹⁵

Understanding the true nature of greed and the full scale of its

surreptitious infiltration into our minds and hearts and into our homes and communities will have a significant influence on the form and manner by which we should decisively tackle it.

The characterization of greed as a form of idolatry was also picked up later by Dr. Ulrich Duchrow (Evangelical Lutheran Church, Germany) in his erudite presentation entitled “Muslim-Christian Theological Framework in Engaging Structural Greed,” where he quoted the decisions of the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in 2003:

…we must engage the false ideology of neoliberal economic globalization by confronting, converting and changing this reality and its effects. This false ideology is grounded on the assumption that the market, built on private property, unrestrained competition and the centrality of contracts, is the absolute law governing human life, society and the natural environment. This is idolatry…¹⁶

He identified the ideology of neoliberal economics as the prime manifestation of greed in the world today. He also traced the origin and structure of greed in what he called the “death-bound” Western civilization— primarily because the way of life as practiced and promoted by it is threatening the integrity of the ecological, cultural and social foundations that supports it¹⁷—and the “spread of a calculating mentality” that began with the introduction of money and private property, and that led to the “splitting of societies and the loss of solidarity,” and then to the invention of double- entry bookkeeping that “transformed the calculation of one’s own benefit into a functional mechanism,”¹⁸ thus revolutionizing the whole worldview of Western civilization by marking the advent of a “means-end rationality” with all its attendant values such as (i) the birth of civil codes in order to safeguard the rules of this functional mechanism, (ii) the formalization of profit maximization as the nature of such mechanisms, i.e., accumulation is simply the natural outcome of the system, and no longer a moral choice of individuals involved in the system,¹⁹ (iii) the quantification of the results of this

accumulation process in the form of money and the reduction of all goods and services to its quantifiable, market value.²⁰

There is a brilliant passage in Dr. Duchrow’s paper where he outlined how “philosophy in Western modernity provided legitimation for the mechanization of profit-making” that deserves to be quoted in full here:

Francis Bacon defined the purpose of knowledge as extension of manipulative power. The philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes defined the human being, understood as male, calculating ratio-subject, as “master and owner of nature,” thus reducing the whole world to an object to be conquered and owned. Thomas Hobbes followed, defining the competition for more wealth, power and reputation of atomistic individuals as the nature of human beings, leading to a war of all against all. John Locke added the definition that human beings are nothing else but owners of property, to be multiplied by mechanisms of money and protected by the state. Adam Smith topped all of this by introducing the “invisible hand,” allegedly transforming all egocentric actions within the market into the benefit for all, called “wealth of nations.” Neo-liberalism finally declared this functional mechanism to be without alternative.

In short, once the nature of the human being is conceived solely and exclusively as that of homo economicus, projected and confirmed by a capitalist- tinged anthropology, then it is not difficult to argue that unfettered competition in the market is the inevitable state or condition in which modern man finds himself in, to which he must pay his obeisance and in which morality in such a society is, as mentioned by Friedrich A. Hayek in an interview:

…ultimately reduced to the maintenance of life—not the maintenance of all life, as it could be necessary to sacrifice individual life in order to save a greater number of other lives. That is why the only rules of morality are those leading to a ‘calculation of life’: property and contract.²¹

Therefore, if we affirm that greed is a form of idolatry, what can be done to smash and bring this false idol down to the ground? In this regard, two points made by Dr. Duchrow is worth mentioning: that when one is dealing with an idolatrous system, mere intellection and reasoning or vigorous activism will not be sufficient. Since idolatry sinks its roots deep into the hearts and minds (like any deep-seated conviction, good or bad), he declared what is ultimately required is a “leap of faith.”

Of course there are many ways in which this phrase may be interpreted. It can simply mean that one needs to believe before one may begin to understand, for instance to feel and experience the worthiness of the cause which then impels one to seek further justification for it. It can also mean that the proposed change needs to have a sound metaphysical or philosophical basis from which to lift itself, for instance, a clear and correct understanding of the nature of man and his ultimate destiny, or else it will flounder in its tracks or veer off its course; or it can be interpreted to mean that genuine change at the wider levels (i.e. societal, national or global) cannot occur if it is not accompanied by transformation at the deeper individual level.

However one chooses to interpret the phrase, I think what is common to all these different interpretations is that the knowledge that one acquires— whether it is about the evils of the current economic system or the various counter-economics models being formulated—will not be of any use at all if it is not translated into practical action. In short, it is not enough to simply sound the alarm of the incoming waves of economic disasters or to alert the masses to the serious shortcomings of the prevalent system, if we ourselves are not able to offer concrete, viable proposals that can deflect the looming calamity and rectify the problem at core. Therefore, we need to develop the ability to put what we know into practice, for knowledge demands action.²²

The second point made by Dr. Duchrow that is worthy of mention in charting our course through the “dark woods” of the current economic system is that the promulgation of new laws, rules and regulations will not necessarily guarantee success since these laws, rules and regulations can be manipulated and co-opted by vested interests to serve vested interests. Therefore, legal instruments against greed—personal or structural—will not be sufficient, especially since those who will be affected negatively by these laws, rules and regulations are themselves involved in the passing and enforcement of these laws, rules and regulations, hence the culture of selective enforcement and prosecution.

It is worth taking stock of what has been said so far with regards to the

nature of our response to the challenges brought upon by the current economic system: we affirm that structural greed needs to be combated with structural generosity,²³ rather than relying solely on disconnected and un-coordinated actions of individual persons, or even (large disparate) institutions; we also affirm that structural greed, being a form of idolatry, cannot be overcome merely through intellection or reasoning but requires a “leap of faith” at the personal level; i.e., personal transformation; finally, we affirm that structural greed cannot be contained and eradicated through legal instruments as those can be co-opted and manipulated by the powers that be.

With all these considerations in mind, we can begin to envision the form and manner of our resistance: that it must begin with the individual, but eventually blossom into a bottom-up, informal yet purposeful collaboration amongst groups of like-minded individuals; and that it must ultimately involve doing or action, but based on a clear and correct understanding of key concepts such as the nature of man, the meaning of happiness, the mechanisms of greed and the worldly and eschatological purpose of economics. It is perfect unity²⁴of theory and practice, of the individual and the communal, of private and public, of voluntarism and contractualism, of moralism and legalism. The famed Chinese sage and philosopher, Confucius, encapsulates the interdependence of all these different levels at different scales in a famous passage from The Great Learning:

The ancients who wished to illustrate the highest virtue throughout the empire first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their own selves. Wishing to cultivate their own selves, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge became complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their

thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their own selves were cultivated. Their own selves being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.²⁵

A similar logic in terms of correct order, priority and strategy may also be detected in the sequence of the original aims of the International Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilization (ISTAC), as proposed and elaborated by its founding director, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas:

To conceptualize, clarify, elaborate and define the Islamic key concepts relevant to the cultural, educational, scientific and epistemological problems encountered by Muslims in the present age...To provide an Islamic response to the intellectual and cultural challenges of the modern world, and various schools of thought, religions and ideologies.²⁶

Here, when he spoke of conceptualizing, clarifying and elaborating on the problems encountered by Muslims, foremost in his mind are the key terms and key concepts that underpin the different branches of contemporary knowledge, and the proper way to engage and deconstruct them in order to lay bare their real nature, meaning and purpose.

For instance, when it comes to the field of economics, we ought to begin by examining the intricate network of key terms framing its discourse, such as ‘wealth’, ‘work’, ‘employment’, ‘debt’, ‘property’, ‘money’, ‘profit’, ‘efficiency’, ‘market’, ‘free market’, ‘finance’, ‘banking’, etc., and how well are these terms “translatable” or not “translatable” into the Worldview of Islam understood as the total vision of reality and truth projected into the mind’s eye by the religion of Islam.²⁷ This can be done in a comparative fashion, i.e., by evaluating whether similar key terms and concepts appear in the Islamic conception of economics (muʿāmala, iqtiṣād, kasb, maʿīsha, tadbīr al-manzil, māl, infāq, naqd, tijāra, ʿaqd). If they do, then in what precise way does its conception of those terms and concepts differ from their counterparts in modern economic thought, and how fundamental are those differences in the context of the distinct, overall conceptual schemes in which they play their conceptual and axiological roles? Naturally, this requires a sound knowledge of modern economics, as well as Islamic economics or muʿāmala as it was properly understood and practiced in the classical past. It also demands knowledge of comparative social and economic history, a firm grasp of the mathematical formulations employed in econometrics in conceptualizing and formalizing economic principles, laws and models;²⁸ and a thorough knowledge of the legal or contractual aspects of commercial and banking transactions,²⁹ not to mention a basic knowledge of the language and the idioms in which these economic principles were first expressed and developed. For instance, in order to understand Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations properly, one requires a good grasp of the form and style of English written and spoken during Adam Smith’s time, its metaphors, its allusions, etc., not to mention the general political economic and socio- intellectual and religio-cultural backdrop.³⁰

It is safe to say that any attempt at challenging or confronting or transforming a dominant system or paradigm (be it of thought, of economy, of culture, or of politics) which does not begin with a critical reflection and clarification of the key terms and concepts underpinning that dominant system or paradigm may inevitably be doomed to be co-opted, appropriated and “naturalized” by that system or paradigm to serve its agenda and purpose, thus rendering it incapable of mounting a consistent or sustained critique of that dominant system or paradigm. Such, unfortunately, is the nature of the failure of Mawlana Taqi Usmani’s efforts to “Islamize” modern finance and banking, in spite of his professional expertise in the legal and contractual

aspects of classical muʿāmala.³¹

If one takes the trouble to read carefully the last chapter of his book, he is actually unhappy at the Islamic Finance industry not helping small traders and the poor in general, and hence, his general tone therein is in fact implicitly supportive of the Islamic Gift Economy (IGE). The problem is that the financial muftis and professionals who follow him are failing to read him critically enough, a reading, in fact, which he himself invites to. The closer we read Mawlana Taqi’s book, An Introduction to Islamic Finance, the closer we shall come to the realisation that it should have been better entitled, An Introduction to Islamic Commerce C Trading, for all those “financial” instruments (mushāraka, ijāra, muḍāraba, salam,³² etc) he discusses are really instruments for trading in real goods and services between real traders, and hence more suited for trading and commercial company structures rather than banking finance and structures. Banking by definition deals in money as a commodity that can be sold, exchanged and rented out, and that is expressed through all the various institutions developed to support that trade in money, and now it has reached the stage where this “money economy” or what Richard Duncan calls “creditism” have been almost totally disembedded from the real economy of real goods, real services and real people, and through which disembeddment, it then free-rides more easily on the real economy and parasites on it and sucks it dry. If this fact is not so clear before, it now stares us in the face.³³

Qualifyingthe term‘banking’ and‘finance’ by the term‘Islamic’ have failed so far to change or even modify in the slightest this basic original definition of banking, which has now become more akin to money laundering (either of legal petro-dollars³⁴ or illegal drug-dollars³⁵⁾ than any actual trading in any real stuffs. So, to expect the banking system to accomodate truly muʿāmala trading instruments and thereby alter its basic ribawī nature is like expecting pubs to go from beer to milk as their core business. As a matter of fact, if we seriously grant Mawlana Taqiʾs stringent redefinition of banking or finance by the qualifier ‘Islamic’, it would not be too far fetched to say that almost all so- called “Islamic banks” in business today will immediately cease to be Islamic in any significantly meaningful or even formal sense of that redefinition. He has lamented the quasi and even the pseudo-Islamic nature of many Islamic banks way back in 1999, when his book was published. Now, 15 years later, any IBF honest insiders will readily tell you (at least in private) the situation has become sorrier still. An honest reappraisal of his book should point towards a viable way to move from banking to trading, and that is something that all concerned (ʿulamāʾ, fuqahāʾ, muftīs, academicians, researchers, activists, professionals, et alii) should work together for, inshāʾ Allāh.

The next paper was presented by Dr. Herry Priyono (Lecturer and Head of Academic Affairs at The Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Indonesia) entitled “Re-embedding the Economy for the Common Good” skillfully avoids this trap of cooption by confidently and succinctly re-defining³⁶-—quite correctly in our view—economics as “the organization of human livelihood.” He rejects the narrow conception of economics as “the self-regulating market system” based on two grounds. First, in mistaking the market system for the economy, we are liable to ignore various other modes of securing a livelihood—of which exchange in the modern context of the market makes up only one of them³⁷—that were operative in many primitive, traditional or pre-modern societies in our historical treatment of them, which in turn have led many to erroneously conclude that these pre-modern societies did not have economies! Second, by mistaking the self-regulating market for the economy, we are lead to believe, as he says, that “the principle task of economic policy is to focus on the mechanical arrangement of the market system, as if by perfecting its self- regulating mechanics, we have contributed great things to ordinary people’s livelihoods.”

To conceive the economy purely as self-regulating markets,³⁸ and then to attribute the well-being of the economy upon its ‘efficiency’ in delivering the intended goods and services, one might be led to believe that progress is made whenever one “tinkers” with some parts or components of the system, and that any kinks or disruptions in the system can ultimately be ironed out sooner or later, once we become cleverer and skillful enough to do so. Any resulting problems can supposedly be traced back to imperfections within the system (but not to system itself), and these can (hopefully) then be contained and rectified, given enough time and brain power, and of course, money power (through the printing press and accounting entries).³⁹ This attitude is not unlike the arrogant belief amongst some scientists, engineers, policy-makers and members of the public that technology will eventually be able to solve all of humanity’s woes, if only we care to throw enough money and time and luck at its further development and refinement, not recognizing that some of the most fundamental problems facing humanity requires not so much an investment in more complicated or more powerful machines, but rather, an even more mammoth reorientation in our worldviews and our values and our attitudes in response to, or disregard of, transcendence.

Dr. Priyono then proceeds to explain in his brilliant paper, among other things how “the market by default has a bias in favor of those who can pay, or by way of inversion, a bias against those who cannot pay,” and therefore “the economy,” defined exclusively as self-regulating markets, “is more concerned with the accumulation process of the rich and affluent than with the livelihoods of ordinary people,”⁴⁰ and how the neo-liberal ideology of today is more accurately described as “market fundamentalism” (which he defined as the “…idea or a programmatic agenda to run a society and personal life based

on the application of the market principle,” and “…based on the priority of the financial/virtual sector over the real sector of the economy”). The grave implications of all these developments are two: first, the intensive and extensive commodification of all spheres of human life, that also causes the restriction or truncation of the full spectrum of human nature and identity,⁴¹ and, one may venture to add, of human potentiality as well, because one’s rank and mobility within a society will ultimately be determined and constrained by his or her economic status, wealth and (purchasing) power; second, the virtualization of the economy, in which “the working of the world economy has shifted from the real sector (for instance, manufacturing, mining, agriculture, etc.) to the financial sector, with all its financial bubbles trailing in its blaze [sic; wake].”

To a careful and sensitive reader, Dr. Priyono’s paper is filled with many interesting linguistic shifts and turns in the forms of well-crafted phrases and words such as “the whole human person,” “development as a civilizing process,” “corrupted semantics,” as well as insightful and colorful sentences such as: “...to cultivate an economy that is ecological, as well as an ecology that is economical,” or “...once in a while these two notions of the economy cross paths at some felicitous moments, but otherwise they normally pass each other like ships in the night, for the two are operating on completely different assumptions about the economy.” Such graceful and adept use of language lends his paper clarity of vision and wholesomeness of ideas that cut through all the self-evolved complexity one often associates with mainstream economics, thus reclaiming the position of the ordinary people—whose knowledge and wisdom have often been dismissed as insignificant in discussions about economics—as important stakeholders in shaping the outlook, purpose and direction of economics and economies. By offering a new definition and vision of economics, Dr. Priyono has effectively placed in the hands of ordinary men and women the tools and skills with which they can use to engage in a critical and constructive manner with the many tales (or perhaps, in deference to Dr. Piryono’s Indonesian background, the wayang—shadow play—stories and epics) that masquerade as economic theories and facts today.

The same courage was evident in Dr. Adi Setia’s effort to reclaim the original definition of economics as “the science and art of earning and provisioning for the common good” and, thus, to link this with the original definition of economics in classical Greek thought as “household management” (or rather, household caretaking) by expanding on the meaning of the key word ‘household’ to include restoring and sustaining overall well-being at the communal, societal, national and global levels, as much as at the familial level. He then went on to infer from this that an economic system that does not encourage and support subsistence at the familial and communal levels as its primary responsibility and priority cannot be properly and legitimately called a healthy economy. For him, an economic system that preys upon the wealth and sweat of the poorer segments of the population for the benefit of the richer and better-off (the actually “sucking-up” rather than the oft-claimed “trickle-down” effect), an economic system in which wealth is concentrated on and confined to a privileged few and thus does not circulate to the rest of the society, an economic system that is parasitic and impoverishes, rather than provisions and enriches, does not deserve by any stretch of the imagination to be called an economy in the original meaning, sense and pragmatic purpose of the word.

It ought to be instructive from this that to begin with an examination of the correct and proper meaning of the word ‘economy’ needs not necessarily lead us down a philological labyrinth; instead, if placed in a capable and expert hand, this kind of rigorous conceptual analysis can help in anchoring and setting the parameters⁴² of the subsequent discussions amongst participants in the dialogue, quite apart from offering a set of ready criteria of what counts or not counts as ‘economy’ and providing a set of indications of its health.⁴³ Therefore, a possible reply to the question Dr. Priyono mentioned at the beginning of his paper, “Why is it when I read economic analysis, popular or academic, I don’t see any economy there?,” is perhaps, “Because those who claim to speak and write about economics are themselves clueless about what is this thing called economy.” Paraphrasing the philosopher and historian of civilization, Will Durant, some experts can no doubt have all sorts of abstruse wisdom to offer to us except straightforward common sense!

With a clear and sound conception of what a true economy really is, what then is the appropriate economics that may arise out of the conception of the economy as “the organization of human livelihood” or as “the science and art of earning and provisioning for the common good”? Dr. Priyono argues that the notion of development ought to be re-casted⁴⁴ by “reviving the virtue of community development,” but at the same time guarding ourselves against three potential pitfalls: the plundering of allocated budgets for development by businesses, politicians and government officials, i.e., the ‘rent-seeking’ syndrome; the opposition between the ‘advocacy approach’ versus ‘developmentalist approach’ in which the latter is taken to mean “an act of conforming to the political agenda of some authoritarian regimes”; and finally, the co-option of corporate social responsibility (CSR) program as mere instruments of the business sector’s public relations campaign, i.e., with the emphasis falling more heavily on the corporate rather than the social in the term ‘corporate social responsibility.’ This could only mean that communities will have to take their economic destinies in their own hands.

With the noble vision of development as “a civilizing process” concerning “the whole human person” for the betterment of his or her life, Dr. Priyono abhors the sector-based approach to development, arguing “the current practices of sectorally partitioning it [development] into the economic, the cultural, the political, etc., may just be a ploy to take it away from the people- centered civilizing process intended by the notion of development.” But, perhaps the whole notion of ‘development’ is flawed, given its provenance in post-World War II’s Americanization of the world system.⁴⁵

Doubtless, religion has a vital role to play in the shaping and determining

of the course of this vision of development, and it may even discard the notion altogether due to its semantic corruption beyond all hope of repair. What is less clear however is the actual nature of this role for religion, especially when on the one hand, there are those who wish to have religion confined exclusively to the subjective private sphere, believing that its entry into public domain will only introduce another centrifugally sectarian element into the political discourse;⁴⁶ while on the other hand, most religious leaders are ill- equipped—knowledge-wise and public relations-wise—to engage in an active and serious fashion the mainstream economic issues of the day. It is worthwhile to note that the apparent intellectual impotence, social irrelevance and political powerlessness of religious leaders—most of whom are also community leaders—in the face of economic, cultural and ecological problems is an issue that keeps recurring throughout the dialogue, and thus the general impression is that this problem of both intellectual and social relevance is common to both Muslims and Christians. Both sides would do well to learn from each other’s experience in this matter.

Report and Reflection: Part Two

As the conference and dialogue unfold and various points of views were tossed into the discussion cauldron, several points of convergence, and various underlying themes gradually began to emerge and take distinctive shapes. These underlying themes are:

Economy as household stewardship
Abundance in relation to scarcity
Trusting and entrusting
The commons and the community
Pockets of resistance and transformative action

Here, we shall proceed to give a brief commentary on each of these intertwining themes.

(1) Economy as household caretaking and stewardship

That it is imperative to have a working definition of the word ‘economy’ that is correct and generally accepted, and once established, to use that definition as the point of departure of our discussion throughout the conference and dialogue is clear to most, if not all of the participants. For how can we begin to talk in a meaningful way about mainstream economics and to discern its pros and cons if our respective conceptions of the term ‘economy’ itself and the discipline that studies its purpose and operations, i.e. ‘economics’, are incomplete, flawed, confused or too divergent? Indeed, genuine progress cannot occur in our discussions if we are still under the spell of what Dr. Priyono so aptly called “corrupted semantics.”

As mentioned earlier, some of the participants proposed a new definition of the word ‘economy’ and subsequently what the field of ‘economics’ ought to concern itself with. Indeed, one of the first things that were discussed between myself (Wan Aimran) and Dr. Adi Setia during our smooth two-hour flight across the South China Sea Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu was a proper definition of economics, which he defined as “the art and science of earning and provisioning for the common good,” or when translated in Malay, “ilmu dan seni mencari hidup dan memberi nafkah bagi kebaikan bersama,”47 which seemed light-years away from the standard definition of economics given in textbooks as “the study of the allocation of scarce resources to fulfill unlimited wants,” which leads to the view that the function of the economy is to “allocate scarce resources amongst unlimited wants.” However, we see economics as the study of the earning and provisioning of livelihoods, and hence, we see that the function of the economy is to provide as many opportunities as possible for the pursuit of making a living and the provisioning therefrom.

There were some concerns that trying to re-define the word ‘economy’ and therefore alter the orientation of the formal discipline of ‘economics’ seemed to be like a quixotic endeavor, besides possibly inviting ridicule and contempt from hoards of trained economists themselves for formulating what seemed to be a ‘simplistic’ or ‘common-sensical’ definition of the very complex thing they do for a living. But the true test of the suitability of a given definition lies in its ability to encapsulate the essence of the thing being defined or described, and how clearly can it can or cannot highlight and connect with other key concepts that relate and pertain to it in an integrative and meaningful way, and of course, how well can it perform in regard to “reality checks and feedbacks.”

For instance, take the definition of the economy as “household

management/stewardship.” At first glance, this definition appears narrow and parochial since it seemed to refer to the simple accounting of the transaction of goods and services that occurs within a typical household, i.e., the products that a family buys, the services they employ, the bills that they have to pay, etc. (standard stuff, by the way, in academic household management courses), and therefore apparently oblivious to numerous other economic transactions being conducted daily on a larger scale between companies, communities, states, countries and continents. In short, this definition, at first look, seemed to reduce the economy to mere calculation of the relatively small number of goods and services within a single family, but then that’s because one has forgotten to really look into what is meant by ‘household’, ‘householder’ and ‘family’.

Nevertheless, to a discerning and imaginative eye, the definition of economics as “household management” will conjure the spectacle of a family living in a home (or some form of shelter), where the main duties of the head of the family, i.e., the parents or householder, are (i) to provide⁴⁸ for the rest of the family members through some kind of employment, work or vocation; and

(ii) to balance between the various demands, needs and desires of its members, i.e., the father, mother, the children, or even members in the extended family such as the grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins, and this is especially true of traditional family structures in villages and rural areas.

Furthermore, this act of balancing is not to be interpreted in a neutral fashion, i.e., it should not be taken to mean that everybody within the family deserves an “equal” share of the “family pie.” Rather this balancing is purposive in the sense that it must be conducted in view of justice, empathy and magnanimity, by recognizing that each member of the family have different duties, needs and desires to be fulfilled, as well as distinct roles and functions, i.e., that the needs of the wife is different from the needs of the son, and that the financial or material or even emotional support they deserve and receive ought to reflect this recognition of distinctive rights and duties.

This act of balancing or “equilibriuming,” for it to be meaningful as opposed to meaningless, also requires a sound understanding of the distinction between needs and wants, since certain things are most wanted but are in fact least needed, i.e., the children might crave for a new toy but good parents must be wise and firm enough to know when to cave in to their demands and when to deny them, besides implying a recognition of

discipline and order, and the need to temper that with freedom and mercy and giving some leeway and indulgence for certain things. To say that this act of balancing must be purposive naturally implies a clear purpose to the whole business of “household management,” i.e., that it is to be conducted with the aim of fulfilling some higher good—for instance, overall happiness, peace, contentment, belonging or health—for the entire household or family, with none marginalized intentionally or unintentionally. In short, one may imagine the household like a small kingdom, with the head of the family like an enlightened ruler, supervisor or coordinator maintaining order and enforcing justice throughout the kingdom—to render to each its due rights, and to demand from each its due contributions to the common good, i.e., to the integrity of the family structure.

Therefore, even with this seemingly simplistic definition of ‘economics’ as “household management,” or ‘economy’ as “law or order of the household,” one has already traced out its multi-facetted connections with other key concepts such as work, justice, limits, needs and happiness, through which our thinking on the economy as a social reality and economics as a discipline of knowledge may be guided. This analogy of a household or a family as a small kingdom may be further elaborated to include “household management” at the:

individual level: for instance, a human being has both physical and spiritual needs, each deserving its dues respectively, but ultimately the physical needs of a person have to be subordinated to and made to serve his or her higher spiritual needs; the famed Muslim scholar, al-Ghazālī used the analogy of a horse and the horseman to describe the proper relationship between the body and the soul—the body is like the horse and the soul is like the horseman.⁴⁹
communal level: for instance, the leader of the community must take care to ensure that the basic needs of the community are prioritized and provided for, to coordinate between the different needs and wants of various segments of the community, to anticipate and plan for the future of the community, to protect the community from ex- ternal harm, and to maintain the physical (i.e., ecological, defensive and material) infrastructure, as well as the spiritual (i.e. religious, cul- tural, intellectual) well-being of the community.
national level: for instance, the leader of a country must oversee the inflow and outflow of goods, services and peoples in and out of his country, to ensure that there be enough provisions for his people, to defend the interests of his country from infractions from abroad, be it physical, economical, cultural, intellectual, etc.; and to maintain internal stability and order with objective laws and effective justice.

Just as the head of a family who neglects the basic needs of his family and prioritizes the needs of his neighbors or even strangers ahead of his own family, or favors one or some family members over others, is deemed to have failed in carrying out his duties and responsibilities, so too a country’s leader who prioritizes the economic interests of other countries to the detriment of his own country, and in doing so, causes enormous suffering amongst his own people, is deemed to have failed in protecting his country’s interest, hence compromises his political legitimacy to rule over that country due to his unjust and short-sighted actions and policies. Such a country will simmer with disorder, its people overwhelmed with poverty and discontent.

A lesson about economic priority may be obtained from this comparison: that a healthy economy is one that prioritizes ensuring subsistence and right livelihood of its people as opposed to being fixated with generating growth just so that its surplus can be exported or expropriated to support further growth, leading towards what the Australian economist Clive Hamilton calls the “growth fetish.”⁵⁰ A healthy economy must first be able to provide subsistence and dignified livelihoods for those living under its care before seeking to fuel investment elsewhere. In short, if an economy does not provide for local peoples and communities, but instead marginalizes, deprives and impoverishes them, then the word economy loses its meaning to the local population.

A community or society that chooses to adhere to the basic guiding principles of right livelihood for the common good⁵¹ may be envisioned as the interplay between the interests of the individual and the interests of the society in which that individual is embedded, as expressed in the following schematic sketch of a cycle or circle of virtuous exchange between the one and the other.

Engaging Structural Greed Today Christians and Muslims in Dialogue 1

In a virtuous circle of exchange, the success of the individual is perceived against the background of support and encouragement from the community. Conversely, the failure of an individual will be cushioned by the same network of societal support and encouragement. In short, an individual does not succeed out of his own individual strivings or efforts alone. Should the individual wishes to run a business in order to invest or re-invest in his or her society, then that individual may (a) hire locals as his workers, or even invite them in as partners (b) buy and sell local products (i.e., local sourcing) for the purpose of his business, and (c) work to improve the economic, educational, or living standards of his own community. Examples of such businesses include slow tourism, rural or urban homestays, community supported farming and manufacturing, agroecological retreats, and community-rooted training and educational programs such as those organized by people in the worldwide permaculture network.⁵² This scheme of things has two immediate implications:

Local knowledge inherited from previous generations remains preserved, nurtured and practiced within the community, thus serving as an antidote against the harmful effects of modern
“monoculturalizing”⁵³ mass education that tends to uproot and sever one’s link with the rich cultural content and relevance of traditional knowledge.
Production of, say, susbsistence crops for local needs and wants are given priority over production of cash crops for non- local needs and wants, e.g., for exports to the rich countries of the West.⁵⁴

It must be emphasized that the description provided above is not simply a flight of the imagination,⁵⁵ but serves to underlie the manifold usefulness of defining the economy as “household management” because it gives us a solid handle on thinking about the purpose of the economy vis a vis the individual, the community and the state, besides providing us with a vision of what a healthy economy ought to look like, and therefore provides us with a reliable yardstick by which we can measure the true wealth (understood in its original sense of ‘wellbeing’) of our own, real, community-rooted economy. No doubt this definition can be further elaborated, and its details and implications fleshed out and fine-tuned; one is not claiming that it is comprehensive or exhaustive in terms of semantic content, but only that it is the correct and proper conceptual point of departure for helping all concerned toward capturing the essence of what an economy or economics is really all about.

If the discipline of economics wishes to continue to be a truthful descriptor of the real economy as understood and practiced by the vast majority of hardworking people (rather than just a small circle of rent-seeking elite), the greatest danger that could befall it is for it to become divorced from reality and from sense and sensibility, full of sound and fury, or perhaps figures, models and formulas, all pies in the skies bewitching and seducing those foolish or diabolical enough to embrace its nihilistic promises; for as the Qurʾān so clearly says to all those who would listen with any degree of intellecto- spiritual discernment, “Satan threatens you with poverty and compels you to indecencies, whereas God promises you divine forgiveness and grace.”⁵⁶

Neoliberal economic and financial disciplines are driven from behind by the gnawing fear of this very threat of poverty, and pulled along from the front by the irresistible compulsive lust toward indecencies.

(2) Abundance in relation to scarcity

An important point that surfaces again and again throughout the conference and dialogue is the realization and recognition that the vision of the economy that we wish to have must ultimately be grounded upon a sound, proper and correct understanding of human nature (or rather, what Professor al-Attas refers to as the “psychology of the human soul”⁵⁷) for it is man—whether as an individual, a group, a community or a state—that engages in the various modes of transactions and exchanges in the economy. Conversely, a truncated or flawed conception of human nature will lead to the construction of an economic system that ignores the basic needs of man, or worse, subverts and reduces them to their purely material dimension as the only dimension worth paying attention to, therefore prioritizing his spurious wants and desires over and above his necessary needs, leading to his eventual perdition.

If one affirms that man has a dual nature, a physical body and a spiritual soul, then it follows that both have their unique needs that must be fulfilled, although not necessarily in the same way or manner, nor in the same order of priority. This implies that there exists a hierarchy of human needs, ranked in the order of priority, importance and ultimate value, which must be recognized and acknowledged for the full flourishing of the whole human personhood, the integrated as opposed to the fragmented man. The needs of the physical body, for example to satiate hunger, though extremely vital for the proper functioning of the human body (i.e., if one is hungry, one will not have the strength and energy to complete other tasks, including religious acts of devotions), must not be pursued to the extent that it infringes upon and neglect the needs of the spiritual soul—i.e., if one eats too much, it may lead to discomfort or sleepiness, if not sickness, which in turn impairs one’s ability to perform one’s tasks and responsibilities, including spiritual and communal ones. So, the food of the body should not be at the expense of the food for the soul, and vice versa. That there are proper and just limits to the physical needs of the human body is also captured in the so-called ‘Law of Diminishing Returns’,⁵⁸ which essentially states that there is a optimum limit up to which satisfying one’s desires is productive, and beyond which the successive gains will become less and less beneficial, and even result in counter-productive losses.⁵⁹

Therefore, an economic system that exalts conspicuous and unlimited consumption, agitates and excites the bodily appetites, whims and desires beyond its proper and just limits, and makes virtues out of vices such as greed, covetousness, pride, gluttony,⁶⁰ etc., will have failed to address the real and permanent needs of a human being; it will have failed to bestow neither lasting satisfaction nor peace of soul to the person, but hurries him from one fleeting desire and worry to another, and leaves him perpetually harassed and enslaved—Sisyphean-like—to his lower, baser and false self. One of our main tasks is then to envision—in a critical and creative manner—an economic system that recognizes and acknowledges the hierarchy of human needs and that can contribute to the cultivation of each of them according to their just dues.⁶¹

Another related point that deserves our immediate attention is to clarify our conception of nature or cosmological vision; specifically whether nature and its resources are abundant or scarce. This issue was subjected to considerable debate amongst participants during the conference and dialogue, with some of them maintaining that natural resources are indeed—in the ontological sense—scarce, whilst others declaring that the perception that a particular natural resource is scarce merely reflects the state of mind of the person, i.e., things in this world are not scarce in and of themselves, but rather we as human beings with limited means to achieve our desired ends, project our subjective limitations and insecurities onto the objective natural world. In other words, is scarcity something with an ontological and cosmological basis independent of human subjectivity, or is it rather a function of a flawed epistemology? The question, “Do we—as Muslims and Christians—subscribe to a cosmology of abundance or a cosmology of scarcity?,” is thus one that demands a firm and clear answer.

One way to arrive at a tentatively clear answer was illustrated by a simple exercise some of us did during one of the usual lively post-dinner discussions. Dr. Martin Sinaga (Lutheran World Federation) casually asked what was the word for scarcity in the Malay language, and amongst the words suggested were tak cukup (not sufficient), sedikit (few or little), terbatas (limited), but none of these words really captured the essence of the word ‘scarcity’, which, in conventional economic thought, seemed to reflect the nature of reality itself and hence does not refer to temporary states of shortages of material goods or services, which is what the Malay words listed above often refer to.

The word ‘scarcity’ as it is bandied around in current neoliberal discourse, to our minds, strikes us as having an ontological ring to it, in the sense that it is not a condition that can be permanently overcome or removed by the ramping up of production or increasing efficiency; rather it seemed to indicate that the world, as it was, as it is and as it forever will be, is always falling short of our material needs and desires, that shortages or limitations are not merely short-lived but everlasting, and that we, as human beings, have no choice but to inevitably accept this reality of scarcity about the world and learn to tolerate and accommodate such an existential condition. but if that is truly the case, then modern economics is a failed, untenable, absurd and failed discipline from the very outset of its dogmatic, unexamined adherence to the axiomatics of scarcity chasing after unlimited wants. We may call this cognitive dead-end the absurdity of scarcity.

As the rest of us around the table groped for an answer, it slowly began to dawn upon us that there was a distinct possibility of there actually being no native word in the Malay language that expresses the meaning of the word ‘scarcity’. It is worthwhile to pause and reflect on this point: if a particular society does not have a word in its vocabulary to express and describe the modern economic concept of ‘scarcity’, then it indicates that the reality that such a concept purports to point to is not even recognized and understood as such amongst the members of that society, i.e, that the concept has no real meaning in that society’s vision of truth, reality, being and existence.

This is not necessarily a negative verdict on that particular society; but rather, it will suggest that such a society does not conceive of the natural world around them as one of scarcity, but instead one of great abundance. There may be periods of shortages when food or water or sources of energy are in limited supply due to natural calamities or disruptive, imprudent use, but these periods are not perceived as a permanent feature of the natural world, such that each member of the society have to compete ruthlessly with each other to secure what they need for themselves, but simply part of the natural cycles of plenty and rarity to which one has to adapt to.⁶² In short, a community living in balance and harmony with natural cycles of the seasons and the environment will see the reality of abundance, while one that is driven by conquest over nature and its subversion will see the illusion of scarcity. In short, one may argue that scarcity is more a function of pyschology than cosmology.

There are several lessons that may be derived from this simple exercise: (i) that it is worthwhile to carefully trace the origin of a particular word, especially one that describes an absolute and important concept such as scarcity, (ii) once the lineage of a particular word is known, it is instructive to examine how well it compares with other words that appear to indicate the same, albeit different ‘shades’ of, meaning, (iii) that if a word is found to have been a foreign provenance, it should be evaluated as to whether it is congenial with respect to the worldview of the society into which it has inserted itself; should it be found to be alien and undermines the worldview of that society, it ought to be ‘neutralized’ so that it may not serve as a conduit through which new ideas of dubious worth—or in Dr. Priyono’s phrase “corrupted semantics”—may be surreptitiously introduced into the thought patterns of that particular society.

For instance, if a society that does not originally recognize the concept of scarcity in its traditional relationship with the natural environment is suddenly introduced to it via the teaching of mainstream economics in its westernized education system, this will gradually alter its attitude towards the natural environment, potentially breeding confusion that is productive of the undermining of wisdom and tradition inherited from previous generations, besides leaving it intellectually vulnerable in the face of persistent cries for change, progress and development.⁶³

(3) Trusting in relation to entrusting

There was a particular moment during the seminar when we feared that we had lost sight of what structural greed actually refers to. We were discussing how does one go about identifying greed and some participants were throwing one hypothetical situation after another that to our minds, helped very little in clarifying what greed in general is, and what structural greed is specifically.

Ms Peggy Mekel asked that if she wanted to buy a third car to keep up with the transport needs of her growing family, is she considered greedy? Dr. Intan Ichsan wondered whether one can be considered greedy if one covets after good deeds instead of material goods. Wan Aimran waded into the discussion by offering a simple definition of greed as “wanting after something that you do not need,” lest greed be transformed into an epistemological enigma. He pointed out that the Qurʾānic parable of Qārūn provides a good description of greed in its various guises and how greed is ultimately relational in the sense that it only makes sense if it involves two distinct parties (i.e., one can hardly be punished for being greedy if one lives alone in some lost corner of the globe impacting on no one or no thing in particular) such that a negative disruption is caused in the relationship between the two distinct but interacting parties. Since all relationships presuppose and are founded upon the notion of trust, greed can then be conceived as a betrayal, a transgression or ultimately a subversion of that trust. A broken relationship is one in which the trust has been lost and, in the case of greed, it is a loss that impacts negatively on one or some of the parties to that relationship.

This profound connection between greed and trust was earlier highlighted by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar in his presentation when he declared that “the human being cannot serve both God and greed at the same time,” which implies that a person who embraces greed as a way of life has turned away from God, or lost his or her relationship with God. Such a person has then subscribed to a “form of idolatry,” in the words of Dr. Duchrow, in the sense that he or she has substituted the real God with a false idol, who beguiles and entrances the heedless into its trap,⁶⁴ so fundamentally unlike the real God who keeps His promises⁶⁵ to those who are mindful of Him, those who give thanks to Him and submit to His laws. Ultimately, greed rends the relationship of trust between man and God, which rending is to the detriment of the former obviously. for as the Qurʾān says, “God has not wronged them, but rather, they have wrong their own selves.”⁶⁶

Dr. Adi Setia brought attention to this intricate connection between greed and trust (or lack thereof) by pointing out rather insightfully that greed implies a lack of trust towards (i) God as the Provider, Cherisher and Sustainer, and also towards (ii) other people, as equal partners and helpers in nurturing and cultivating the abundances of this world. The fear of not getting and having enough of something, because of the worry that what one already has will not last and what one does not yet have will also be wanted by others who are chasing after the same thing, incites a strong urge to hoard, monopolize and enclose (hence the so-called ‘enclosure of the commons’⁶⁷), and feeds an obsessive and excessive individualistic and competitive mindset where everyone is in it only for himself, where the strong will survive and the weak shoved aside (as per the social Darwinist ‘survival of the fittest’), where might makes right, and where virtues such as cooperation, kindliness and generosity are only seen to be impediments to one’s own prosperity and advancement, even at the cost of the impoverishment and extinction of others. But as everyone should know, one reaps what one sows, even in the midst of compulsive indulgence, and there is always what is called ‘blow back’ in this life and, most surely, in the Afterlife. ⁶⁸

If one affirms that ‘greed’ is linked in a profound manner to a lack of trust (or reliance on God = tawakkul), it follows then that the opposite of greed, ‘generosity’, not only signals the presence of trust but more than that, it also implies that generosity may and can engender trust. As Mr. Benjamin Quinones beautifully puts it, “Trust has a currency to it.” Therefore, an economic system that fails to cultivate an ecology of trusting and entrusting amongst those who participates in it will attempt to ‘monetize’⁶⁹ (aka, impersonalize) its risks through various means such as the charging of interest for providing loans, profiteering, monopolies and so on, all of which places financial, mental and physical burdens on customers or consumers or stakeholders at large, effectively enslaving them to the whims, fancies and dictates of the fabricators and manipulators of the economic system founded on mistrust.⁷⁰ In constrast, an economic system that makes trust its capital is one that empowers and liberates its participants, and shows respect to their unique potentials and encourages true financial, mental and physical independence and well-being; and moreover, it objectivises trust in the manner in which it develops its formal contractual forms, such that mutuality and transparency becomes the key ethico-legal element in all contracts. Therefore, the conceptual linkages in the interrelationships between greed, generosity, trust and independence (or empowerment) in an economic system are thus established.

(4) The commons in relation to community

If we subscribe to the cosmological view that the world is one in which abundance is continually restored by God, the Creator of the world, and the psychological view that every human being has a hierarchy of needs—from the lower physical and bodily needs, to the higher (and more importantly, truer) spiritual and cultural needs—it follows then that the role of a human being in this world ought to be envisioned as that of a trustee or steward.

If one were to check the etymology of the word ‘steward’, one would discover that it is derived from the Old English word stiward or stigweard that means a “house guardian” (from stig “hall” + weard “guard”).⁷¹ If one were to cast one’s mind back to the earlier discussion on the original meaning of the word ‘economy’, one will recall that it also contains a reference to the idea of a house and the associated notion of a household (hence “household management”); and therefore it is very interesting to note that this reference makes its appearance in the root word for ‘steward’ as well, as if signaling to discerning minds that the proper title of the person whose duty it is to care for the entire household is that of a steward.⁷²

The proper scope of the duties of a steward may be gleaned from the way this title is used in early England and Scotland, in which it referred to a class of high officers who “manages affairs of an estate on behalf of his employer,” which implies that a steward manages something—a property, an activity or a trust—on behalf of somebody else who is the owner, i.e., it is not for him to claim to manage something in his own name or in his own right. This implies several things: (i) that the caretaking is temporary and not perpetual, i.e., in the sense that there is a definite beginning and a definite end to the period of one’s duties (analogous perhaps to being in an examination or a test⁷³); and also that the given trust is ultimately not ours to own, and therefore not ours to give away in a frivolous and wasteful manner, for nemo dat quod non habit or one cannot grant what one does not have; (ii) that there is an “objective” standard by which one ought to manage the given trust, i.e., that one cannot simply manage it according to one’s personal whims and desires; and (iii) that one’s performance in discharging one’s duties will ultimately be judged by the true owner or bestower of that trust, i.e., one will be held accountable for the way one manages the bestowed trust.

Therefore, the cosmological perspective that we choose to adopt—that the world is one of abundance rather than of scarcity—acquires extra layers of significance here, namely that: (i) that precisely because everything abounds in this world, human beings as stewards are never to hoard anything during their brief sojourn in this physical world, but instead they ought to take what is sufficient to fulfill their needs and to satisfy their “tamed” wants, to cultivate they humanity,⁷⁴ to preserve the earth for those who will come after them and to finally return it, preferably in the same or even better condition in which it was first given/entrusted to them, when they pass away;⁷⁵ and (ii) rather than

allowing all the abundance that surrounds us to excite our desires and inflate our egos, our efforts to cultivate, nurture and preserve that which has been entrusted to us must be in accordance to the ethico-moral rules that have been laid down for us by the One Who has entrusted it all to us, Who has placed fixed limits and restraints to demarcate between the broad but straight path of temperance and the slippery slope of extravagance. Our attitudes and actions as stewards will therefore be reflective and expressive of the twin cosmological facts that everything has been created in due measure and that everything submits to Him.⁷⁶

Let us now turn to the nature of this trust that has been bestowed on us as stewards. It is not difficult to see how this trust, having been bestowed by its true and ultimate owner, i.e., God, will acquire the status of something sacred. Its intrinsic value and worth is therefore not something that can be bartered, bargained or compromised. Intrinsic value here would mean a value in the context of the overall divine plan that is quite independent of and transcends whatever subjective, pragmatic value we input to them. What follows from this is that there exists several things⁷⁷ that are considered non-negotiable as far as its intrinsic values are concerned to the life of human beings, which also implies that these things—the commons—must be equally accessible by everyone in a society, or even everything and every life in nature. For instance, if clean air is valuable to the lives of every single person and living being (or, to put it another way, everyone depends on clean air in order to live healthily), it follows then that everyone deserves to have an equal right and free access to it.

In the context of human economics, one may conceive of the commons as common human rights, though not in the narrow legal sense, but rather, as something that each and every individual deserves to have access to by the very virtue of simply being a human being. If one wishes to be more specific, one may reflect upon the definition of the commons formulated by Dr. Adi Setia during the conference and dialogue:

The ‘commons’ may be defined as referring to the underlying backdrop of God-given natural and cultural wealth which we all share and depend on for ensuring the sustainability and flourishing of our livelihoods.

There are several important points here that one may extract from this definition. First, the commons constitute those essential elements of the world upon which all human beings depend in order to live and thrive,⁷⁸ such as clean water, clean air, food, shelter and livelihoods. In this sense the commons forms the foundation or underlying backdrop of resources for subsistence upon which higher types of needs and wants are build. Second, it does not merely include material things but also non-material elements that are vital to the full flourishing of a person’s life such as religion, culture, dignity, intellect, progeny or family, etc.

One can even argue that for the so-called ‘free-market’ to be really free, the ‘market’ has to be enivisioned as a ‘commercial commons’ accessible and open to all, rich or poor, who wish to trade in it; just as the mosque can be seen as the ‘devotional commons’, accessible and open to all the faithful to come there and worship. Thus, the commons is meant to satisfy not only the physical and bodily needs of a person, but also his cultural, spiritual and emotional needs. Third, the commons, inasmuch as it is something to be shared by all in the community, is also commonly owned by all in the community, and therefore something held in public trust or common ownership by all as a collective, to be shared with everyone in that community. For instance, a river that flows through a village is not exclusively owned by any one person in that village, but provides sustenance to all who inhabit that village in terms of drinkable water, fishes, etc., and therefore the river is a commons for that particular village, and all villages downstream, leading to the notion of a regional or bioregional commons.⁷⁹

A commons, understood in this manner cannot be ‘enclosed’, usurped and transferred into private ownership to be treated as a purely commercial commodity to be broken up into pieces and sold into absentee ownership by far-away faceless investors and speculators. However, an objection may be raised to this point by invoking the so-called “tragedy of the commons.” But as pointed out by Dr. Duchrow and Dr. Priyono during the conference and dialogue, the scenario that unfolds in the tragedy of the commons rests on the assumption that if something is held in commons, then nobody really owns it and therefore nobody feels obliged to care for it in the process of using it. Everybody then proceeds to utilize that commons without taking into account each other’s use of it, which ultimately leads to it deprivation, desolation and destruction. Moreover, we all know that private ownership in itself is no guarantee of responsible stewardship, but rather, it has become more of a tool to exploit resources for vested interests at the expense of both nature and culture and the larger society.⁸⁰

Also, it is does not automatically follows that just because something is held in common, nobody owns it. The alternative inference that if something is held is common, then everybody sees a duty to care for it in collaboration with others, is equally logical, while the former thinking does not occupy a privileged position in the sense of being more “objective” or “neutral” with respect to the latter way of thinking. Of course, if somebody seeks to justify the expansion of the scope of private property to include things such as clean air, clean water, forest, etc., then it is clearly advantageous for him to trumpet how much better such things will be taken care of under private control, which, in turn, paves the way for intensive and extensive privatization, i.e., the transformation of public goods and services into private good and services, and then their monopolization and monetization through the charging of fees on the public for its use. The enclosure of the commons was and is in fact driven by the obsessive greed for the systemic accumulation and concentration of capital and wealth in the hands of the few.

A fundamental distinction between modern forms of corporate privatization with traditional forms of privatization (for instance, through charitable endowments or waqf in the Islamic civilization), lies in the fact that in the latter case private wealth or property is voluntarily and formally transferred by the personal owner into common ownership in the interest of some aspects of the public good, i.e., for some well-defined benefit to the wider community. Hence a person of means may, in his private capacity and personal initiative, endow a shop or some farm lands to support a school or mosque or hospital, or to provide for single mothers or the poor and destitute in general. In this respect, waqf in Islam can be seen as a privately initiated, funded and managed public welfare system. In contrast, in the former case, public goods and properties such as forests, pastures, even water resources are ‘enclosed’ and formally but coercively (whether by direct or indirect coercion) transferred into private, individual or corporate ownership, and turned into a monetized commodity to be bought and sold in the commercial marketplace, thereby compelling the community to pay for something that was once open for access to its members for free. Thus, we find access to clean water regulated and billed,⁸¹ entrance into parks and open spaces for recreation charged a fee, which can be exorbitant for many ordinary people, and highways interspersed with toll plazas which are gradually replacing normal trunk roads.

Modern corporate privatization transforms what used to be held in commons or in the public domain into a privately controlled asset in the interest of largely private profit, whilst traditional forms of privatization transforms what used to be a privately-owned asset into a public good for the benefit or welfare of the community as a whole. With this distinction firmly in mind, one may begin to distinguish between proper privatization versus improper privatization, and to unmask the latter for what it truly is: the unfettered commoditization of the commons for selfish gain at the expense of the common good.⁸²

Indeed, most of the arguments rallied in support of modern corporate privatization are essentially variations on the same theme of what we might call “the myth of the tragedy of the commons.” This myth says that a particular resource will be managed more efficiently if it is owned by some private person or corporation, as a result of which the public will enjoy a better quality of service. One can see that from the very beginning, this line of argument implicitly marginalizes the virtues of spontaneous cooperation and generosity, since it is unable to conceive of a scenario wherein members of a community may collaborate with one aother to care for and nurture a common or shared interest upon which is founded their collective well-being, as though the cooperative impulse is not part of human nature. The fact is that this myth is systemically rationalized and thereby institutionalized in order to tip the “cultural balance” towards intensive and extensive competition and unfettered individualism, and hence, toward exclusion and alienation. It is the convenient extrapolation of the Darwinian biological conception of the ‘survival of the fittest’ to the cultural, social and economic domain of life, clothed, as it were, in a dazzling and dizzying profusion of erudite-sounding economic jargons and terminologies to befuddle the mind with regard to its actual, diabolical agenda.⁸³

(1) Pockets of resistance in relation to transformative action

The dissonance between the virtues of cooperation and generosity implicit in the concept of the commons with the sensibilities of mainstream economics that accepts unrestrained competition in the largely rigged ‘free market’⁸⁴ as its absolute guiding principle illustrates a useful lesson for those opting for actualizing a new vision of the economy and evaluating its performance. This vision is namely one that sees that a new purpose for the economy demands a new set of criteria and measures for what counts as economic success and failure. If the purpose of the new economics for the common good is fundamentally different from the purpose of the mainstream economics as widely understood and practiced today, it follows then that the various indicators and yardsticks that one uses to evaluate and measure the health and progress of the economy today must be re-examined in the light of the new purpose of this new economics; granted, one need not go so far as to re-invent the wheel in as far as some of those indicators and yardsticks are concerned. What is required is to widen our gaze and to re-calibrate our thinking so that we may perceive these disparate indicators and narrowly defined yardsticks for what they are in relation to the true purpose of the new economics, for as the American philosopher Will Durant has so pertinently said:

For a fact is nothing except in relation to desire; it is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.⁸⁵

This new economics will have to be cognitively elevating and thereby raise us to the high pinnacles of integrative ethical wisdom rather than keeping us bound to the low foothills of fragmentative technical facts, in order that we may finally see the values behind the numbers, the meanings behind the relations, the objectives behind the theories and the purposes behind the disciplines.

For instance, one of the main objectives of economic development set by the government in countries like Malaysia is to become a “high-income nation.” Now a moment of careful reflection might will make one realize that the notion of ‘high’ and ‘low’ in general is meaningless if the standards by which that evaluation is made are not made explicit. Even if those standards are made known, one will realize that merely passing some arbitrary monetary or quantitative measures cannot be construed as a purpose in the proper understanding of that word because (i) it is relative, i.e., a salary of MYR⁸⁶ 10,000 per month may be considered to be high in a big town like Ipoh, but it may not be considered high in a much larger city like Kuala Lumpur; (ii) it changes, i.e., what qualifies as ‘high-income’ for this year may no longer be true for the next year; and (iii) it is temporary, i.e., the criterion ‘high-income’ is not backed by something truly objective or concrete, and hence it is subject to a whole set of external circumstances, some of which are even beyond the control of those who formulated these standards in the first place, and therefore they may be invalidated, modified or even discarded altogether at some point in the future. Something as ambiguous as the airy notion of ‘high- income’ cannot and should not serve as a criterion for something as important as the quality of the livelihood of millions of people, much less something for which all of our resources are to be devoted to. Perhaps a good advice to mainstream economists would be, “Stop quantifying the unquantifiable, please!” For, what if one can actually have a ‘high income’ while yet penniless and owning nothing to his name? In other words, income is a function of both culture and nature, and we all know that culture and nature are not flat or monolithic or uniform, but rather, rich and complex, and hence any standards that aim to flatten what cannot be flattened are diabolically self-serving.⁸⁷

No doubt a lot of thought, creativity and courage will have to be expended in devising a new set of both quantitative and qualitative criteria by which the health and progress of this new economy can be objectively determined⁸⁸ and

soundly evaluated, and in which set, the quantitative are but a function of the qualitative and serves it. Yet, we would do well to remember the insights offered by the well-known Muslim thinker and philosopher, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas:

The concepts of ‘change’, ‘development’, and ‘progress’ presuppose situations in which we find ourselves confused by a commixture of the true and the false, of the real and the illusory, and become captive in the ambit of ambiguity. In such ambivalent situations, our positive action in the exercise of freedom to choose for the better, to accept what is good and relevant to our needs, all the while maintaining our endeavor to return to the straight path and direct our steps in agreement with it—such endeavor, which entails change, is development; and such return, which consists in development, is progress.⁸⁹

In talking about creating so-called pockets of resistance in the midst of the chaos and decay that we find ourselves in today, there are several things that have to be recognized and acknowledged. First, that we must “confess our entanglement and complicity in the structures of greed”⁹⁰ by the very fact that we are involved in the various transactions that are taking place in the mainstream economy of today. Nonetheless, this is not an anguished cry of despair, but a confident assertion of the current situation we are in and a clarion call to all others who are awake and keenly aware of the economic maelstrom coming our way in order that we may pool our wits and resources together in confronting and overcoming it. As the permaculturist Bill Mollison likes to say, “The problem is the solution,” but provided we recognize the problem for what it is, own up to our complicity in its fostering, and then formulate and take systemic steps to engage and overcome it. In short, we caused the problem, and hence we have to “uncause” it by causing its solution. We have to repent and undergo the arduous rites of atonement for the sins of our excess.

After all, there is a fundamental difference between a citizen who, seeing an invading army approaching the walls of his city, merely runs from one house to another in order to alert its inhabitants but otherwise incapable of offering a sound and practical defense strategy, and an experienced general who, on observing the same threat, began to rally his troops and the civilians, and call all the townspeople to arms, and to coordinate between all the various parties, so that together they may provide an effective resistance against the invading army and engender a powerful counter attack to defeat it, and thus save the city.⁹¹

Second, in order to ensure that the positive change we wish to see will be sustainable in the sense of being able to garner, maintain and regenerate its momentum, it is crucial for us to recognize that genuine change can only occur if it is underpinned by transformation at the personal level, i.e., that the locus and focus of change must ultimately be the human being, for we affirm that the grave challenges brought upon by mainstream economics today have its root in a confused and perverted understanding in the human mind of what the economy is, its meaning and its purpose. The knowledge and understanding of economics have been corrupted in the minds of men, which led to numerous grotesquely immoral acts rationalized and perpetrated in its name abetted by the cold indifference of their hearts in the face of such rationalizations. Only when the knowledge and understanding of economics have been rectified and placed in its proper and correct place in relation to all the other disciplines of knowledge and with respect to all the other priorities and requirements of our daily lives, that such acts will stop and the cold frozen hearts will begin to thaw and beat with the pulse of humaneness once again.

One thing that immediately follows from this is the role of economic education, especially the need for a systematic promotion of a counter- economics in institutes of higher academic and vocational learning. Considering how schools, colleges and universities from all over the world are churning out economic, business and financial graduates who are trained in the theoretical and practical frameworks of mainstream economics, i.e. neo- liberal economics, the need to promote, develop and disseminate alternative voices and narratives to the neo-liberal conception of economics and the world in a systematic fashion is a most urgent one. This emphasis on a counter- economics education was a point that was initially made rather forcefully by Dr. Adi Setia and it was accepted by the participants of the seminar and later incorporated into the text of the final declaration of the conference and dialogue. It is worthwhile to quote this particular proposal as it appears in the final declaration in order to appreciate it prescient nature:

Design and develop alternative curricula that include: (i) a critical examination of the key terms and concepts that underpin mainstream economics, for instance ‘money’, ‘wealth’, ‘property’, ‘work’, ‘market’, ‘growth’, etc.; and (ii) a comparative study of promising alternative streams of economic thought, one that includes close reflective readings of key economic texts available in the Islamic, Christian and Eastern intellectual traditions.

This carries over to the next point on education: that of the religious scholars. One of the recurring themes during the discussion was the apparent and real disconnect between religious and economic education; that the religious scholars, some of whom are important leaders of their local communities, are incapable of addressing pressing economic issues facing their respective communities, and engaging these problems in a critical and wholesome manner and thereby offering useful guidance to the members of their community. In short, there is a difficulty, if not failure, to bring religious insights to bear evaluatively upon the contemporary economic challenges that confront individuals and communities as well as the society at large on a daily basis.

There is a need, therefore, to close the gap between the compartmentalized branches of religious and economic knowledge and training by re-casting key economic concepts and theories in the light of religious virtues—especially as encapsulated in the kasb genre of texts⁹² in the case of the Islamic intellectual tradition—and by including a critical, evaluative overview of basic economic principles and issues into the proper study of religion, so that religion itself may constitute a viable and effective pocket of resistance against the serious challenges brought upon its adherents by mainstream economics. Religious institutions such as mosques and churches themselves have to play a vital and visible role by re-aligning their practices and re-envisioning their positions within their respective communities to become shining exemplars of ethical and responsible societal stewardship.

In addition, they must lead the way by demarcating the fine line between earning a living and the greed for more and more in a clear and concrete manner and to commit to such distinction in their own practices, befitting their true roles as beacons of light towards what is right for their followers in this ever darkening world, as Enya beckons us in her lovely theme song, May It Be, for the film trilogy Lord of the Rings:

May it be,

when darkness comes, your heart will be true;

When the night is overcome, you may rise to find the sun.

It is obviously a good thing to equip those occupying the positions of political power within a society with a sound grasp of basic economics so that they may guide their flock to safety, but we believe that such a re-education should not only be confined to the leading political members or intellectual elite of the community. There is no reason why the proper and correct understanding of economics, especially viable alternatives to that currently practiced in the discredited, crisis-laden mainstream economy, should not be made incumbent upon religious leaders and their students, including community leaders, administrators and professionalism general, since they too hold enormous responsibilities within their own communities or network of relationships, making decisions that influence, directly or indirectly, the well-being and direction of their flocks. As a matter of fact, it is more the case that the kind of deep-level change and transformation envisaged here is more suited to decentralized, bottom-up, community-rooted initiatives than to any well-meaning public policies concocted at the state level. No big brother is going to help you; you’ll will have to help yourself; and to be able to help oneself must constitute one of the core elements of true freedom.

In Islam, knowledge is divided into two types, depending on its priority to a Muslim in relation to his responsibility to himself and his community: disciplines of knowledge that are individually obligatory upon each and every single Muslim without exception fall under the category of farḍ al-ʿayn (personally obligatory), whereas the disciplines of knowledge which are not obligatory upon all Muslim but only on a qualified few fall under the category of farḍ al-kifāyah (communally obligatory).⁹³ What is important to recognize here is that the division between these two classes of obligations is not static but may change depending on the circumstances and needs of a particular Muslim community, i.e., a discipline of knowledge that used to fall under farḍ kifāyah may be re-classified as farḍ ʿayn if the situation in which the society finds itself in necessitates all members of the community to be introduced to that discipline and subsequently acquire a sound understanding of it. Of course, it is not enough to merely make the study of economics obligatory upon every student currently attending schools, colleges and universities (or engaging in business activities, for that matter), especially if the content is not properly and systematically designed, evaluated and tested in the light of the axiological tenets of economic exchange in Islam.

As Dr. Herry Priyono pointed out, we should take heed from what is currently going on in the rapid proliferation of entrepreneurship courses in institutions of higher learning. These courses begin with the seemingly harmless and noble aim of equipping the students with basic entrepreneurial skills so that they may one day become financially self-sufficient, but they fail to anticipate the detrimental effects of inculcating the conventional entrepreneurial outlook in the minds of these students, as though the ‘cash- value’ of the sum total of what they have learnt throughout their entire education depends on the price it will fetch in the neoliberal market. If institutions of higher learning are meant to cultivate a spirit of intellectual depth and sobriety which flowers into deliberate and careful action, thereby resulting in true long-lasting benefits for both personal good and the common good, then the undue emphasis on narrowly conceived entrepreneurial skills, with its absolute adherence to the mechanistic “calculating mentality” is disruptive—if not altogether contradictory—to the project of producing a wholesome and well-balanced person. If we would balk at sending our youth to fight a misguided and pointless war, then why should we remain silent when they are being trained en masse only to become cannon fodder in the greatest war of deception of our time, the war of the political economic elite against culture and nature?

An objection may here be raised against the indictment on the insertion of entrepreneurial courses into the higher education system: “Is it not good to prepare our youth for financial self-sufficiency by equipping them with basic entrepreneurial skills? This way, they have a choice whether to secure employment at some company or corporation, or, if they so wish, to start their own businesses and to learn to earn a living through that?” Two replies can be mustered against this objection: the first one is that it is unwise to teach students knowledge and skills without making them aware of the larger superstructure (i.e., the mainstream economic system) in which that particular form of knowledge and skills are embedded. More important than teaching students the know-how to set up a stall or run their own street-corner business, they need to learn whether particular goods and services should be sold or offered in the marketplace at all in the first place. We do not want to become a nation of shopkeepers and petty businessmen whose valuations of the goods and services they sell are left entirely to the whims, desires and fancies of the consumers, who, in turn are brainwashed daily by all kinds of commercial advertisement directed at them through the mass media. We wish not to produce men and women having merely commercial skills but also who are possessing of a holistic, integrated economic vision, and who know how to organically embed their particular enterprises into the larger religious, ethical and cultural fabrics of their respective communities and societies. Training students with entrepreneurial skills without teaching them about the meaning, purpose and principles of a truly embedded economy is like giving somebody a net without teaching him how to identify the right fish to catch. This, of course, brings us to the question of the correct and appropriate conception of ‘entrepreneurship’, which, in Islam, is intimately connected to the notion of kasb or ‘earning a livelihood’, and which, in Buddhism, to the notion of ‘right livelihood.’⁹⁴

The second reply goes deeper by comparing the words employment with the phrase earning a living. The former is quite prevalent in mainstream economics and it seems that we have structured our entire existence around this word, i.e., even the subjects that university students are to choose are nowadays based less on a sense of real personal interest or community relevance than on whether this or that subject will allow one to secure employment or not in the corporate world. It is now undeniable that the only value that modern education possesses, and that is recognized today, is that which is given by potential employers in companies or industries, which, in turn, are largely complicit in expressing the neoliberal economic agenda. One may perform a conceptual analysis on this word in order to see whether there is inherent in the term a notion of making oneself dependent on something (e.g., a company or corporation) or somebody, or of abasing oneself at the service of somebody else.

On the other hand, the phrase earning a living, has a fundamentally different connotation to it, in that it implies a person doing something (whether producing something or rendering his or her service to somebody else) with the intention of supporting one’s livelihood; it denotes a meritorious service that deserves and thus earns just and fair payment or reward in return; it respects and recognizes the unique skills or abilities that a particular person has to offer; it thrives on creativity and diversity rather than uniformity and rigidity; and implicit in the word is this sense of knowing where the limit is, i.e., the limit of how much or how often one should be working, how much one should be fairly paid; and knowing the limit of things is often a sure sign of wisdom. The difference between these two terms comes out quite clearly when one looks at the etymologies⁹⁵ of these two words:

EARN: From Old English earnian meaning “deserve, earn, merit, win, get a reward for labor.”

EMPLOY: From Old French emploiier meaning “make use of, apply; increase; entangle; devote” and from Latin implicare meaning “enfold, involve, be connected with.”

It is quite clear from this comparison—apart from the curious geographical fact that the former word originated from England whilst the latter from France, and speculation on what this implies about the differences between the English and the French work ethics—how the word earn carries within it a condition of independence, whereas employ signifies a condition of dependence on, or entanglement to something or somebody else.⁹⁶ So perhaps we should start going about shifting the conceptual parameters of the debate on the connection between education and economics, i.e., instead of talking about ensuring ‘employment’ opportunities for young graduates, it might be more enligtening and effective to talk of ensuring the widest opportunity for them to ‘earn a livelihood’, and especially, ‘right livelihood.’ One may or may not find employment, but one should always (barring ill-health or delibitating old age, and such like) be able to earn a decent, dignified, rightful livelihood. If the subtle distinction inherent in the meanings of these two terms is not clarified in the minds of those who are responsible for teaching the students, then there is a potential danger here in that what such entrepreneurial courses are effectively doing is to indoctrinate their students into the economic game of dependency on faceless “big-brothers” called banks, governments, corporations, etc., as it is now being played according to the rules set by those who invented the game in the first place for their own profit. Financial self-sufficiency— even if realizable through playing such a game –should never be conflated or confused with intellectual independence and moral courage.⁹⁷ There is little point in preparing a new batch of ‘players’, i.e., young entrepreneurs, if the unfair rules of the economic game remains as mighty as ever in place, gaining more credence perhaps by the continuous influx of new and unsuspecting talents. We should do well to remember the remark made by Solon when the King of Lydia, Croesus, showed him his gold, “Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold.” So, the question is: who is the real master of all this gold (now basically wispy e-“wealth”) we assume we have amassed through playing (or rather, through being played like pawns in) the economic game according to abstruse rules we have never really tried to fathom?

Epilogue

Modern mainstream economics, powered by neo-liberal ideology, has both perverted and subverted the way we perceive and relate to our own selves, to other people and the world around us. It has either fragmented or severed completely our deep and intimate link with God, which left us wandering aimlessly in the moral and spiritual wasteland into which barren soil various high-sounding but deceptive ideas and concepts have sunk deep their roots, thus further reinforcing the desolation of the wasteland. It is a place where our constant yearning, striving and agitating for pointless things have generated a lot of feverish, endless activities; things, though acquired, that never seem to give us any real sense of personal liberating experience, communal belonging, or spiritual upliftment and contentment. We always seem to be working for things, instead of really having things working for us. Things have become the ends for which we have become the means.

The miser may wax rich with streams of gold, Unsatisfied, though hoarding wealth untold,

His neck bent low with pearls from India’s shore, His rich fields ploughed by oxen, score on score. Yet gnawing care attends him all his days;

At death his fickle wealth without him stays.⁹⁸

For such is the inverted nature of mainstream economics in the sense that it—Midas-like—distorts and perverts everything it touches. In the lust for gold, hunger and death (of others hopefully) cannot be too high a price to pay in its view (though in the case of Midas, he realized too late that he was paying too high a price). It paints a bleak and false vision of a cosmology of scarcity rather than a bright and true cosmology of abundance. It must always see scarcity in the midst of abundance, or invent it. It marginalizes and dismisses the vision of an economy of right livelihood in favor of an economy of growth for growth’s sake, even at the expense of livelihood. It prioritizes the fulfillment of global demands over securing local needs. It treats the virtual economy as real and the real economy as illusory and unreal, or real only insofar as it can go on parasiting on it. It demeans agriculture in the economic priorities of a country and cajoles developing nations to sacrifice the prosperity built on the basis of agricultural diversity and cultural ingenuity in return for the monotonous grey skies of industrial smokestacks and financial skyscrapers, and vast monocultural plantations of alien crops worked by cheap foreign and exploitable workers. It breaks up the family as the basic unit of the traditional economy and replaces it with the disembedded individual. It glamorizes the bodily and egoistic aspects of man whilst suppressing or ignoring his or her deeper cultural and spiritual aspects through all kinds of distractions called entertainment.⁹⁹

To our minds, there is no clearer indication of the fundamental disjunction between the mainstream economics as understood and practiced today and the new vision for the economy proposed and discussed in this essay than the fact that greed—whether at the personal level (greed as such) or structural level (greed as growth)— in all religions is perceived as a symptom of self- impoverishment or self-deprivation, i.e., as a pathological inner emptiness, rather than as a positive impetus to real attainment. If one accumulates and yet the things which one accumulates result not in a net gain but instead a net loss (e.g., more indebtedness, degradation of natural capital, etc.), then it implies either (i) what one is vigorously accumulating is actually worthless, therefore acquiring more and more of it adds nothing significant to one’s wellbeing or happiness, or (ii) that one has exchanged something infinitely more valuable and more important with something of much lesser worth, in which case one is like Aladdin’s wife who exchanged her husband’s old and rusty magic lamp with a new and shiny lamp. In both cases, it demonstrates a failure in judging and assigning true and correct value to what one has, to what one gives away, and to what one pines for, a failure which lies at the root of greed itself.

The challenges that we will all have to face to initiate and sustain genuine positive transformations in the economy are numerous in number and enormous in size, but not insurmountable. The constant need to be wary against the surreptitious nature of greed, and to overcome at every step our current complicity with positive resistance and alternatives, will be very tiring indeed, but it should not deter us in the long run, for we do look with hope, confidence and competence toward the long term for a positive outcome. We, as Dante set out in his famous poem The Divine Comedy, must, as it were, first journey down through Hell and witness all of its horrors and punishments, make our way through the Purgatory, and finally, slowly but surely, ascend to Paradise.

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,

So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,

Were not, as ‘twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land,

Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. I do not see why I should e’er turn back,

Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew— Only more sure of all I thought was true.

(Robert Frost, Into My Own)¹⁰⁰

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),

All three authors are members of the Vision in Action (ViA) Study Circle, who at- tended—on the invitation of the organizers—a Christian-Muslim Interfaith Dia- logue on “Engaging Structural Greed Today” organized by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Sabah Theological Seminary (STS) through September 25—30 2011 in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. For numerous news articles of this important event, please see http://www.peaceforlife.org/resources/statement/ partners/138-muslims-and-christians-engaging-structural-greed-today. Email addresses: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; aliffbasri@ gmail.com.

This paper constitutes the authors’ report and reflection on the conference and dialogue in the hope that it be beneficial to readers interested in cross-religious engagement with modern economics and finance, especially in view of the cur- rent, ongoing economic and financial turmoil.

A glimpse at the themes of the various sessions ought to alert one to the theoretical nature of the sessions on Monday, whilst the sessions on Tuesday touched upon more practical aspects in the attempt to engage structural greed.
This particular stop in our excursion is of immediate educational value to the discussion we had during the seminar on the vision of an economy ‘re-embedded’ into society, because it provided both lessons and warnings on how such a process may be done in a way that is sensitive and respectful to the needs of a particular This point was empathically made by one of the participants, Tan Sri Simon Sipaun, a native of Sabah who was also the former vice-chairman of Human Rights Commission Malaysia (SUHAKAM).
The final conference findings are published in an Appendix entitled, “Muslims and Christians Engaging Structural Greed Today: Conference Findings,” in Martin L. Sinaga, ed., A Common Word: Buddhists and Christians Engage Structural Greed (Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2012), 119-124. This document is also accessible online at: http://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/ DTS-Studies-201201-A_Common_Word_sm.pdf.
The Biblical Korah; al-Qaṣaṣ, 28: 76-82; Torah, Numbers 16: 1-
Referring to the divine injunctions to observe the limits and not transgress them; e.g., al-Baqarah, 2: 187, 2: 229, and many other verses.
On the differences between desire, wish, longing, hankering and coveting: “Desires ought to be moderated, wishes to be limited, longings, hankerings, and covetings to be suppressed: uncontrolled desires become the greatest torments; unbounded wishes are the bane of all happiness; ardent longings are mostly irrational and not entitled to indulgence; coveting is expressly prohibited by the Divine ” See George Crabb, Crabb’s English Synonyms (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1916), 253.
See, for instance, the report by David DeGraw, “The Axis of Greed: The Nature and Structure of the Economic Elite,” Global Research, February 19 2010, online at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-axis- of-greed-the-nature-and-structure-of-the-economic-elite; and Barry Ritholtz, Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2009).
See Brian Rosner, Greed as Idolatry: The Origin and Meaning of a Pauline Metaphor (Grand Rapids, Michigan: W. B. Eerdsmans, 2007).
One may venture to add that the thing being sacrificed here are three: (i) a man’s sound and proper relationship with himself, (ii) his relationships with his family, neighbors and friends, and (iii) his relationship with the One True God.
In today’s world of cut-throat competition, how often are we taunted with the supposed missed opportunities of securing a well-paying job or of occupying a powerful position in a company should we fail to ‘sacrifice’ our time and effort to achieve it?
See Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, “The Meaning and Experience of Happiness in Islam,” in Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1995), 94-95, and pp. 99-102.
Primarily through the way mainstream economics are taught in schools, colleges and universities See Herb Thompson, “Economics and the Promotion of Ignorance-Squared,” in The Virtues of Ignorance, ed. Bill Vitek, Wes Jackson (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008),pp. 273—292.
The nearly effortless, if not willing, co-option of Islamic Banking and Finance into the modern mainstream banking and financial systems is a good case in For an insider indictment of the current state of Islamic Banking and Finance, see the lecture by Yusuf Jha titled “Is Islamic Finance Delivering?,” available online at: http://www. ethicainstitute.com/Is_Islamic_Finance_Delivering.aspx.
For an outline of structural generosity in the Islamic context, see Adi Setia, “Muʿāmala and the Revival of the Islamic Gift Economy, “Islam C Science, 1 (2010) No. 2; for the Christian context, see, inter alia, Ronald J. Sider, Just Generosity: a New Vision for Overcoming Poverty in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007).
Ulrich Duchrow and Franz J. Hinkelammerl, Transcending Greedy Money: Interreligious Solidaity for Just Relations (New York: Plagrave, 2012),
Perhaps a good way to summarize the spectacle that we observe (and complicit in) today is as follows: the desperate pursuits of consumption without satisfaction, of pleasure without happiness, of facts without illumination and of relationships without meaning.
This point requires more factual support, but he, understandably, would not be able to provide it in paper, which, though erudite and well- documented, is so far-ranging in scope.
One can also say that greed, previously condemned as a sin committed by a morally conscious individual, is slowly naturalized and gradually becomes accepted as a feature or the norm of a ‘moral-free’ system. Greed thus becomes attributed to a faceless, impersonal thing called the economic system or the market, rather than to sins committed by individuals, hence becomes difficult to pin down since it seemed to simultaneously be everywhere and nowhere specific in the system.
This observation dovetails with what has been called the “physics envy” of economic theorists. On this see, see the chapter on “The Ironies of Physics Envy,” in Phillip Mirowski, More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 354 ff;
See Friedrich von Hayek, interview in Mercurio, Santiago de Chile, April 19 1981.
It may be added here that conversely, one may learn through doing as Therefore, action founded upon right knowledge, and knowledge that leads to genuine transformations in the real world is simply two sides of the same coin.
The psychological and sociological structures of both greed and generosity have been explored in the Islamic tradition in works such as al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Bukhalāʾ (Book of Misers); and al-Dāraquṭnī, Kitāb al-Askhiyāʾ (Book of Generous People); see, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Structures of Avarice: The Bukhalāʾ in Medievel Arab Literature (Leiden: Brill),
In the sense that both sides complement each other, and that the preference for one over the other is one of priority, importance and suitability depending on the requirements of justice and wisdom. It is not a situation where a person is forever locked in mortal combat for one against the other, or one seeking to cancel or subdue the other.
Cited in Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1942),
Program of Graduate Studies, 2000-2003 (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2000), 12; see also Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud, The Beacon on the Crest of a Hill (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1991), 38—39.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2001), 1-2.
Especially, their often unstated underpinning assumptions and the limit of their validity in applying to complex realities on the
For what passes as contractable or contracted in modern commercial or financial transactions may not be the case in the light of the Islamic legal understanding of what counts as a valid contract (ʿaqd).
We suppose this is one manifestation of what he called the Tawhidic method of knowledge, in that in order to understand a branch of knowledge, one has to employ knowledge gleaned from other disciplines, not only in terms of methods but also, more obviously I think, in terms of content. He made this point clear in the Introduction to his latest book, Historical Fact and Fiction when he spoke of the prerequisites of being a good and competent historian; I think one can easily propose a similar set of criterion for scientists (based on his monograph Islam and Philosophy of Science), and also for economists (based on the introductory chapter to the Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam, and his monographs The Meaning and Experience of Happiness in Islam and The Nature of Man and the Psychology of the Human Soul). Refer to Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1995), and Historical Fact and Fiction (Johor Bahru: UTM Press, 2011).
Muhammad Taqi Usmani, An Introduction to Islamic Finance (New Delhi: Idara Isha’at-e-Diniyat, 1999).
Respectively, business partnership, renting and hiring, venture capital and buying in advance.
Richard Duncan, The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy (Singapore: John Wiley, 2012); see also idem, The Dollar Crisis (Singapore: John Wiley, 2011).
In which case, it is called “petrodollar recycling”; see, interalia, Ibrahim Warde, Islamic Finance in the Global Economy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Press, 2010); and Tadashi Maeda, “Making Sense of theFast-Growing Islamic Finance Market,” in Angelo M. Venardos, ed., Current Issues in Islamic Banking and Finance (London: World Scientific, 2010), 115- 124.
Matt Taibbi, “Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail,” Rolling Stones, February 14, 2013, accessed online: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214?print=true; Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to do about It (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).
There was a discussion afterwards as to whether what is actually being done here is to propose a new definition of he word ‘economics’ or simply to re-claim and restore the original definition of the In any case, both position presupposes that the original meaning of the word ‘economics’ has been corrupted or hijacked, which led to a false vision of what economy ought to be, its outlook and its purpose. It is worth mentioning that one of the participants questioned the need for a re-definition of the word ‘economics’. Dr. Priyono countered that the this re-definition is not intended first and foremost for the critical gaze of economists, rather it is meant to provide a definition of ‘economics’ that includes and describes real economic activities as understood and practiced by the people.
The other modes of securing livelihood are reciprocity and distribution.
A good critique of this conception is Duncan Foley, Adam’s Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology (Harvard: Harvard U. Press, 2006).
This mentality is also behind the belief that we can deploy some new and wonderful invention in the wider society without carefully considering and weighing its benefits and its risks. Should something harmful results from its use, it can be dealt with in an ad hoc fashion The rapid progress in which technological innovations make its way to the public domain has strengthen the deluded belief amongst scientists, businessmen and politicians that we can let free the ‘demon’ of technology first and eventually become clever and wise enough to control it.
He also made the distinction between what he called “accumulation economy” and “survival economy” where the former is concerned with the multiplication of profits and completely disregards its consequences on the livelihoods of ordinary people, whilst the latter is focused upon securing subsistence in life.
The human being as an economic creature displaces or overwhelms all other ways of being that is open to man, such as a biological creature, a political creature, a cultural creature, a historical creature or a spiritual creature. Therefore, the existential condition of a human being is defined entirely by his or her place, role and function in the economy, narrowly conceived.
For instance, when one recognizes that the original definition of the word ‘economy’ means household management, several key concepts associated with it should appear before the mind’s eye, such as: subsistence, needs, work, wealth, home, shelter, property, parents and children, neighbors, land, the environment, justice, good, beauty, happiness, etc. These key concepts ought to guide one’s thinking about the economy, in terms of its purpose, outlook and methods; in a sense, these key concepts parameterizes our thinking and discussion about
If one recognizes an intimate connection between economy and subsistence, it follows that an economic system that does not make the fulfillment of subsistence and livelihood (in food, in water, in energy, in shelter, ) as one of its main targets has not actualized this recognition, and in doing so, turned back on its original meaning, which cast serious doubts upon its worthiness to be even called an ‘economy’.
Just like the word economy, the word ‘re-casting’ was subject to a long discussion with regards to its suitableness and as to precisely what it entails; other like words that were proposed by the speakers and participants include ‘re-embedding’, ‘re-insertion’ and ‘re- connecting’, all of which indicates a general sense that economics as understood and practiced today has been disembodied or divorced from the real needs of the society within which it operates. This general feeling is supported by empirical evidence presented by Priyono’s in his paper, especially on the distinction between the real versus virtual economies, and also by Dr. Luigi Bruni in his presentation, especially his description of the so-called “paradox of happiness” (i.e., that higher GDP does not correlate positively with average happiness) and the qualitative relationship between market and happiness. See also the book by Clive Hamilton, Affluenza: When Too Much Is Never Enough (Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2005).
See Gilbert Rist: History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith (London: Zed Books, 2008); see also Serge Latouche, The Westernization of the World (London: Polity Press, 1996).
There is an anecdote worth sharing with regard to this point. During the opening dinner, Dr. Adi Setia remarked to those around the table how funny it is to find that people are now demanding a ‘religious response’ from religious officials and scholars in the face of the economic, cultural and ecological problems that they are currently facing, when it was they who called for the restriction—if not outright expulsion—of the role played by religion in the public sphere in the first place. As Dr. Adi Setia so nicely puts it, “Initially, they either dismissed, or drifted away from, Now, when these mounting problems that are haunting them do not seemed to go away despite all of their best techno-scientific efforts, they are scrambling for a religious solution as a last resort.” I remarked, “Perhaps we should tell them: ‘We told you so’,” to which Ms Athena Peralta (World Council of Churches) replied, “Yes, we definitely should.”
This idea of the ‘gift economy’ is currently promoted and popularized in Western discourse by Charles Eisenstein in some of his books, like Sacred Economy: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition (Berkeley: Evolver, 2011).
It is interesting to note that both words ‘provide’ and ‘provision, are derived from the same Latin word providere, which means “look ahead, prepare, supply” where pro- “ahead” + videre “to see” (related to vision). From the Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/, accessed 24th October 2011.
Aaron Spevack, trans., Ghazali on the Principles of Islamic Spirituality: Selections from the Forty Foundations of Religion (Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 2012), 92.
Clive Hamilton, Growth Fetish (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003).
For the Islamic view on right livelihood and the common good, see Adi Setia & Mahdi Lock, , Right Livelihood C the Common Good: Three Classics from the Islamic Tradition (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2013).
http://www.permacultureglobal.com/
Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind (London: Zed Books, 1993).
It is interesting to note that there are plenty of Malay proverbs that touch upon this harmful tendency to privilege external or foreign interests over and internal or local Examples include: “Kera di hutan disusukan, anak sendiri kelaparan”, “Menang sorak, kampung tergadai”, and “Yang dikejar tak dapat, dikendong keciciran”.
Even if we have but drawn a picture, it may serve as a goal and a model for our movement and behavior.
al-Baqarah: 2:
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, The Nature of Man and the Psychology of the Human Soul: A Brief Outline C Framework for an Islamic Psychology and Epistemology (Kuala Lumpur; ISTAC, 1990).
Herman Daly and Joshua Farley, Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004), 19
To take a simple example, if one is hungry, the first plate of rice will be nourishing to us; if one is still hungry, a second plate of rice is welcomed and probably will be enough to remove one’s hunger. Therefore, if one insists on helping oneself to a third and a fourth plate of rice, the satisfaction one derives from these subsequent plates of rice might be dampened by the fact that one is already full. Indeed, going for a fifth plate of rice, out of some uncontrollable desire, might well bring upon oneself sickness and misery.
For an introduction to the concept of the seven deadly sins in Christianity, see the Wikipedia entry “Seven deadly sins,” last modified on October 26, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins.
We think a good place to start is to reflect on the true purpose of work since various aspects of human nature are readily manifested in the nature of the work a person Once the true purpose of work is clarified, one can use it to discern between “good work” versus “bad work,” to promote and encourage the former and to warn people away from the latter. See the incredibly important book by E. F. Schumacher, Good Work (Harpercollins, 1980).
For instance, see how traditional fishermen in Newfoundland, Canada adapted their fishing activities to the natural reproductive cycles of codfish in the seas around them. See Dean Bavington, Managed Annihilation: An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse (University of British Columbia Press, 2010); also an interview with him on the radio series How to Think About Science produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/ episodes/2009/01/02/how-to-think-about-science-part-1 24-listen/#.
For an excellent elaboration on how changes and restrictions to the meanings of key terms and concepts in a worldview may lead to a corruption of that worldview, see Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1995), 30-32.
One is warned in the Qurʾān that “Satan threatens you with the prospect of poverty and commands you to do foul deeds” [2:268]. All of the translations of the Quran are taken from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qurʾan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Dr. Muzaffar Chandra employed the phrase “the greed trap” in his presentation, implying greed as something that ensnares and drags one down (to Hell most probably, if one continues to be heedless), rather than empowers and
One is strongly reminded of the following verse from the Qurʾān: “Remember that He promised, “If you are thankful, I will give you more, but if you are thankless, My punishment is terrible indeed” [14: 7].
Āl ʿImrān: 117
M. Neeson, Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700- 1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); see also, Vandana Shiva, The Enclosure and Recovery of the Commons (New Delhi: Research Foundation for Science, technology and Ecology, 1997).
“Those who are miserly with what God has granted them out of His Grace should not think it is good for Whatever they meanly withhold will be hung around their necks on the Day of Resurrection,” (Qurʾān, Āl ʿImrān:180).
One can reflect whether this is simply a logical outcome of the “calculating mentality” mentioned earlier, i.e., even non-tangibles such as trust remain vulnerable to such a commoditization process.
Say that I am lending a sum of money to a friend. Now if I distrust my friend’s ability to fully repay the loan in a specified amount of time, it makes sense for me to lay down strict conditions regarding the amount, the frequency and duration of its repayment, simply to mitigate the risks associated with it as much as I might even be tempted to set high interest rates so that I may ‘recoup’ my ‘losses’ when I lent him that sum of money. Naturally, such strict conditions will incur enormous financial, mental and physical burdens on him, effectively making him dependent on me. The lesser my trust in him, the stricter the conditions will be. Therefore, the imposition of strict conditions upon the customer in an economic system (for instance, by charging ridiculously high interest rates) may well reflect the level of trust within that system; the stricter the conditions, the lower the level of trust between the parties involved in the transaction. In short, the level of trust is inversely related to the cost of transaction.
From the Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/, accessed 25th October 2011.
On the differences between care, charge and management: “Care will include both charge and management; but, in the strict sense, it comprehends personal labor: charge involves responsibility: management includes regulation and A gardener has the care of a garden; a nurse has the charge of children; a steward has the management of a farm: we must always act in order to take care; we must look in order to take charge; we must always think in order to manage.” See George Crabb, Crabb’s English Synonyms (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1916), 143.
Is not our fleeting existence in this physical world the grandest test or trial of all, set and supervised by our Creator and at the end of which we shall all be judged and given our respevtive ‘grades’?
The apparent resemblance in form between the words ‘guardian’ and ‘garden’ is not purely coincidental in this context for it indicates a resemblance in meaning as
This explanation gives an extra depth and significance to the fact that we cannot bring any of our material possessions into the afterlife, i.e., a steward recognizes and acknowledges when it is time to move on and that it is preferable for him to pack lightly but wisely for this final journey. He who travels happily must travel lightly.
Another way to express this point is to consider the following: we affirm that everything that have been created have their right and proper places, and their conformity to their respective places signal their submission to the Creator; we also affirm that human beings are the best of all of His creations, and if we act in such a manner that conforms to our right and proper place in the whole order of Creation, then our submission will be the most perfect, the most ideal, and the most beautiful compared to the submissions of the rest of Creation.
We used this word for a lack of a better term, for we do not intend to limit ‘the commons’ merely to material objects.
If one may draw a parallel with the classification of the maṣlaḥa (which means benefit, interest, welfare) by the Andalusian legal scholar Abū Ishāq al-Shāṭibī (d. 1388), this corresponds to the first and lowest—in the sense of being the most important and not in the sense of being the most poor in quality—class of the maṣlaḥah, ḍarūriyyāt (which means essentials). The other classes—arranged in decreasing order of priority—are the complementary (ḥājjiyāt) and embellishments (taḥsīniyāt)
See especially the various works by the 2009 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Elinor Ostrom. See Scott London, “Governing the Commons,” review of Governing the Commons, by Elinor Ostrom, 1998, http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/ostrom.html. For a thorough overview of the commons both as an idea and as movement, see the excellent website On the Commons at http://onthecommons.org/.
See Susan Jane Buck Cox, “No Tragedy of the Commons,” Environmental Ethics, 7 no. 1 ( Spring 1985), 49-61; and see also Ian Angus, “The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons,” Socialist Voice, August 24 2008, online at: http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=316;
Ulrich Duchrow informed us of the amazing development in Uruguay where a recent amendment to its Constitution saw the inclusion of water as a basic human right. For more information and elaboration, please see “Uruguayan people change the constitution for a human right to water,” http://www.oikoumene.org/activities/ewn-home/drop- by-drop/uruguayan-people-change-constitution-for-the-human- right-to-water.html, accessed on 25th October 2011. Please see also the useful and informative report on, “The Constitutional Right to Water in Uruguay,” online at, http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1414&context=sdlp&sei-redir=1&referer, accessed 25th October 2011.
Garvin Karunaratne, “The Bane of Privatization,” Asian Tribune, March 14
For more discussion, see Stephen Lewis, “The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons,” The Wild Peak, August 23, 2012, http://thewildpeak. com/2012/08/23/the-myth-of-the-tragedy-of-the- commons/.
Rigged, since the ‘free market’ as currently conceived and actualized is but a function of the prevalent and dominant economic ideology, which is neoliberalism and financialism, and, we might say, bankingism.
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (New York: Pocket Books, 1961),
Malaysian dollars.
Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007); for a rebuttal, see, Matt Taibbi, “Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman,” New York Press, April 26 2005.
Objective in the sense of being grounded in the concrete reality of the economic conditions of the people participating in this economy, a measure that is a faithful description of the circulation of wealth and distribution of prosperity in the economy, that gives just priority to the important factors in the economy and yet does not underestimate the influence of marginal factors (i.e., that sees big things as big and sees small things as small), a measure that reflects reality rather than cruelly imposing itself arbitrarily upon reality.
Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam,
We find this to be one of the most stirring parts of the text of the final declaration of the seminar. It is humbling yet dignified, which is always much more preferable to being proud yet stupid.
Adi Setia likes to give the following analogy to demonstrate this important point: Suppose there is a person telling his hapless friend that the roof of his only house is in danger of collapsing soon. It is useless for the person to repeatedly notify his friend without informing him the steps he can take in order to repair the roof. At best, his friend will thank him for that piece of information (albeit not a very pleasant one) and continues to live in his house with the danger hovering over his head (literally), until one unlucky day, the roof caves in and injures him. That warning alone, even if given with the best of intentions and concerns, is necessary but insufficient to remove his friend from harm.
Kasb in this context can be translated as “earning a livelihood”; see Adi Setia, “al-Ghazālī on the Proprieties of Earning & Living,” Islamic Sciences (Summer 2013), and the relevant references
Adi Setia, “Farḍ al-Kifāya, Muʿāmala and the Commonweal: Reconnecting Economics and the Economy to Communities,” Islamic Sciences (Summer 2013).
For some insightful explorations in right livelihood in East and West, see Claude Whitmyer, ed., In the Company of Others: Making Community in the Modern World (New York: Tarcher, 1993); Whitmyer, ed., Mindfulness and Meaningful Work: Explorations in Right Livelihood (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1994).
From the Online Etymology Dictionary, etymonline.com, accessed 24th October 2011.
The fact that the word ‘earning’ = ‘kasb’ was featured as the title of a book by the Muslim jurist Muhammad bin al-Hassan al-Shaybani (d. 189/804), Kitāb al-Kasb, should serve as a signal to us of the profoundly different way in which the concept of work is conceived in the Islamic civilization, and its proper place within the economy, along with it a whole host of other things such as guilds, waqf, trade,
Indeed, if regulatory laws can be co-opted wholesale to serve instruments of structural greed in the mainstream economy, then why not the education system itself as well?
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy,
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York; Penguin, 2005).
Robert Frost, A Boy’s Will (Fairfield, IA: Ist World Library, 2003), 11

THE ADAB OF THE MUFTI

BEING A TRANSLATION FROM

THE INTRODUCTION TO AL-NAWAWI’S AL-MAJMūʿ

Mahdi Lock

Keywords: etiquette of learning; fatwā; fiqh; Islamic jurisprudence; muftī; al-Nawawī.

Ask the people of knowledge if you do not know. (Q al-Naḥl 16:43)

Introduction

Imam Abū Zakariyyā Muḥyīal-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Sharafal-Nawawī(631-676/1233-1 in Damascus), is the muʿtamad source of the Shāfiʿī school¹. That is, he 277, born and died in Nawā, southern Syria, after spending most of his life is its relied-upon authority, such that his positions and statements are given the greatest weight and all subsequent books and commentaries are based on his books and statements. In addition to his numerous books on Shāfiʿī fiqh, his works are well-known and highly respected throughout the Muslim world, including such titles as Riyāḍ al-ṣāliḥīn, al-Adhkār, and al-Arbaʿūn al-Nawawiyya. His intention behind composing al-Majmūʿ² , he writes, was to free the followers of the madhhab from having to resort to any other book:

I hope that the completion of this book will allow one to be free of every other bookand through it the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī will be decisively known, if Allah the Exalted so wills.³

Indeed, the monumental Majmūʿ is the ultimate reference work for the Shāfiʿī school, while the Imam’s shorter work, Minhāj al-ṭālibīn wa ʿumdat al-muftīn,⁴ is the ultimate curriculum text in the school, studied with one of three commentaries (namely those of Imam Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī,⁵ Imam Shams al-Dīn al-Ramlī⁶ and Imam al-Khaṭīb al-Shirbīnī⁷.

Imam al-Nawawī wrote a long introduction⁸ to al-Majmūʿ, a wonderful summary of what every teacher and student needs to know as well as every urisconsult (muftī⁹) and questioner (mustaftī¹⁰). The value of these few chapters of the introduction was recognized by the Egyptian publisher Maktabat al-Ṣaḥāba, which in 1408/1987 released them as a separate book titled Adāb al-ʿālim wal-mutʿallim (“The Etiquettes of the Scholar and the Learner”). The present translation of Chapter 5 of the introduction is thus based on this edition rather than any current edition of al-Majmūʿ; footnotes are those of the present translator.

This text deals with the qualifications and etiquettes of a muftī as well as the etiquettes of a mustaftī, but cannot be decisively separated from the preceding chapters, in which the Imam discusses the importance of having a sincere intention, the importance of seeking knowledge, the etiquettes or proprieties of being a learner, and last, but certainly not least, the etiquettes and qualifications of being a teacher (which is of course related to those of a muftī). The Imam says:

They have also said that one should not take knowledge except from someone who is perfectly qualified, whose religiosity is manifest, whose realization is affirmed and whose prudence and leadership are well-known. Ibn Sīrīn,¹¹ Mālik¹² and others from the first three generations have stated, “This knowledge is religion, so look at who you take your religion from.” With regards to being qualified to teach, it is not sufficient to have a lot of knowledge. Rather, along with a lot of knowledge in that specific discipline, he should have general knowledge of the other disciplines of the Revealed Law, because they are all connected, and he should be someone of rank, religion, beautiful manners, sound intellect, and full cognizance. They have said that you should not take knowledge from someone who has taken it from the insides of books without reading under shaykhs or one proficient shaykh. Whoever hasn’t taken knowledge except from books will fall into misreading, and there will be much error and distortion from him.¹³

In an age of mass media and mass communication, it is very easy for a Muslim to give his or her view on a religious matter, and it is just as easy for another Muslim to be fooled by it. Titles like shaykh, sīdī, imām, and so on are granted to various sorts of people with little or no inquiry as to what those titles mean and whether such granting is warranted. Thus, knowledge is sought from such people; they give lectures and teach texts, and they move on to the realm of answering questions, or giving fatāwā. Just because a few laypeople regard someone as knowledgeable does not mean that such a person is qualified to teach, let alone give fatāwā, and the Imam mentions that the laity are often deceived with regards to whom to take fatāwā from:

Abū ʿAmr¹⁴ said, “We should stipulate for the one who reports that he have knowledge and insight that enables him to distinguish that which is dubious from that which isn’t, and one should not rely therein on the information of a few laypeople due to the frequency in which they are deceived.”¹⁵

Thus, Imam al-Nawawī provides some useful guidelines for the layperson to follow when judging whom to take knowledge from and whom to ask for a fatwā. There are many instances nowadays of fatāwā being given that are either being issued by someone unqualified and/or do not meet the requirements of issuing fatāwā. One of the most significant fields in which this is being done being what is called Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF)—very similar to the ‘Islamic Schools’ movement, common in the United Kingdom and other parts of the Anglosphere, and the ‘Islamic State’ movement found amongst several Muslim groups in both the traditional Muslim heartlands as well as farther afield, in that it is an attempt to Islamize something that in itself has nothing to do with Islam. ‘Islamization’, as these advocates have coined it, can only have a superficial effect on the branches of these institutions without transforming their foundations.¹⁶

Therefore, we find many Islamic schools which follow the same curriculum as any Christian or secular school with the minor exceptions of some additional classes in the Arabic language and something called ‘Islamic Studies’, plus breaks for prayer and maybe a Qurʾān memorization class at the end of the day. The fact that children are classed according to age and have minimal contact with the adult world—something completely alien to Muslim cultures for centuries—is never really questioned. Similarly, any blueprint for an ‘Islamic State’ automatically takes for granted the sprawling bureaucracies that are the hallmark of the modern, overly centralized nation state, with no thought given to the actual governance structures that Muslims inherited and developed for over a thousand years.

IBF, staying in lockstep with the Islamic Schools and the Islamic State projects, also takes for granted the conceptual and structural foundations of what it is trying to Islamize, namely modern ribawī banking and finance, and only attempts to make cosmetic changes to the branches of those foundations and their transactional contractual forms.¹⁷ This means that the question of “what is money?” is never really asked. From where has paper acquired such exchange value? Is a mortgage the only way of buying and owning a house or a piece of land? A close study of and reflection on the guidelines given by Imam al-Nawawī should help one to go about looking critically at gestures like the IBF movement and scrutinize its advocates and leaders. First and foremost, one can ask whether these advocates are qualified to issue fatāwā. Secondly, even if they are qualified, are they meeting the requirements or rulings for issuing a fatwā, or are they simply bypassing them in the rush to meet the commercial demands of the IBF industry? One of the rulings for giving a fatwā is the following:

The third is that it is unlawful to be negligent in giving fatwā, and if someone is known for doing so then it is unlawful to seek a fatwā from him. Being negligent includes not proceeding with caution, and hastening to give the fatwā before giving it its full right in terms of investigation and reflection. If he already knows the answer because he has been asked about it before, then there is no harm in answering promptly, and this is how what has been related regarding previous scholars answering promptly should be understood. It is also from negligence for corrupt objectives to induce him to pursue unlawful stratagems, or disliked ones, and to cling to doubtful matters in order to get a concession for someone he wants to benefit, or to be strict towards someone he wants to harm.¹⁸

Indeed, before a fatwā is issued, the topic at hand must be given its full right in terms of investigation and reflection. The deeper and more recondite questions, that is, those questions that strike at the often hidden foundations and unexamined assumptions of these modern institutions, have to be asked, and only then can fatāwā be issued. This means that at times the muftī has to take the trouble to bring to the fore the implicit question behind the explicit question. As laypeople (that is, non-specialists in fiqh) who are otherwise well informed of the issues at hand and the stark reality behind the facade of things, we can assist our muftīs by asking these very questions and, through responsible research, help them to answer them, as the people of knowledge are the property of the Umma. Knowledge, reputation, and a sweet tongue should not dissuade or discourage us from inquiring about matters that need to be investigated, researched, and reflected upon.

This is not to say that we do not have responsibilities and etiquettes as questioners, for they are also mentioned at length by Imam al-Nawawī. What he is actually giving us, may Allah have mercy on him, is the means and tools of how we, as intellectuals, students, and questioners, can interact and work harmoniously with our teachers and muftīs, in our local communities and on a global scale, and we ask Allah to grant us tawfīq in this very endeavour, amīn!

My knowledge is with me wherever I turn, benefitting me My heart is a vessel for it, not the inside of a box When I am at home, the knowledge is there, with me And when I am in the market, the knowledge is in the market (Imam al-Shāfiʿī)¹⁹

Translation of Chapter Five of the Introduction to al-Nawawī’s al-Majmūʿ:

The Etiquettes of a Fatwā, the Muftī, and the One Seeking a Fatwā

Know that this chapter is very important. I wanted to give it precedence due to the general need for it, and a group of our companions²⁰ have already written about this, including:

1. Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṣaymarī,²¹ shaykh of the author²² of al-Ḥāwī²³

2. Then al-Khaṭīb Abū Bakr al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Baghdādī²⁴

3. Then al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ.

Each one of them mentioned precious things that haven’t been mentioned by anyone else. I have studied the three books and extracted a brief summary that comprises every important matter that they mentioned and I have added to them some gems from the miscellaneous speech of our companions, and with Allah is every success.

Know that giving fatwā (al-iftāʾ) is a matter of immense significance, formidable position, and much precedence; because the muftī is the inheritor of the Prophets, may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon them, and he is carrying out a communal obligation, but he is liable to make mistakes. This is why they have said, “The muftī has a position with Allah the Exalted.” We have related on the authority of Ibn al-Munkadir²⁵ that he said, “The scholar is between Allah the Exalted and His creation, so look at how he enters between them.” We have related on the authority of the first three generations and those who stand out from amongst the khalaf²⁶ many well-known statements regarding abstaining from giving fatwā, and we shall mention some of them in order to seek their blessings (tabarrukan).

We have related on the authority of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā²⁷ that he said, “I met one hundred and twenty of the Helpers (al-anṣār) from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. One of them was asked about an issue and he passed it on to someone else, and he in turn passed it on to someone else until it eventually came back to the first person.” In another narration: “Not a single one of them would relate a hadith except that he wished that his brother would spare him from having to do so, and none of them would be asked about something except that he wished his brother would spare him from having to give fatwā.”

It is [related] on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd and Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allah be pleased with them: “Whoever gives a fatwā regarding everything he is asked about is mad (majnūn).”²⁸

It is [related] on the authority of al-Shaʿbī, al-Ḥasan, and Abū Ḥuṣayn, who were Followers: “Indeed one of you will give fatwā regarding an issue, and if it were to reach ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him, he would gather the people of Badr against it.”

It is [related] on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾīb, the Follower: “I met some people and one of them was asked about a matter and when he spoke he was trembling.” It is [related] on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās and Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān²⁹: “If the scholar is heedless of ‘I don’t know’, then his assailant has indeed afflicted him.” It is [related] on the authority of Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna and Saḥnūn³⁰ : “The boldest of people with regards to giving fatwā are the least of them in knowledge.”

It is [related] on the authority of al-Shāfiʿī that he was asked about an issue and he didn’t answer. He was asked why and he replied, “Until I know whether it is better to remain silent or to give an answer.”

It is [related] on the authority of al-Athram³¹ : “I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal often saying, ‘I don’t know’, and it is amongst the known saying and proverbs on the matter.”

It is [related] on the authority of al-Haytham ibn Jamīl³² : “I witnessed Mālik being asked about forty-eight issues, and regarding thirty-two of them he said, ‘I don’t know.’”

It is [related] also on the authority of Mālik that he was maybe asked about fifty issues, and he didn’t answer a single one of them. He used to say, “Whoever gives an answer regarding an issue, before he answers he should place himself before Paradise and the Fire; how will he end up? Then he should answer.” He was asked about an issue and said, “I don’t know.” It was then said to him, “It’s a light, easy issue.” He then became angry and said, “There is nothing light in knowledge.”

Al-Shāfiʿī said, “I never saw anyone in whom Allah the Exalted had gathered the tools of fatwā as he gathered them in Ibn ʿUyayna, and [yet] who was more silent than him with regards to fatwā.”

Abū Ḥanīfa said, “If it were not for the fear from Allah the Exalted that knowledge would be lost I would not give fatwā; they get the delight³³ and I get the burden of responsibility.” Their statements regarding this are many and well-known.

Al-Ṣaymarī and al-Khaṭīb said, “They are few those who are keen to give fatwā, racing towards it and applying themselves with zeal, except that they have little success and they are disturbed in their affairs even if they don’t like it, can’t influence it, and can’t find any alternative. If he changes his affair then the support from Allah is greater and propriety in his answers is greater, as proven by his statement, Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the authentic hadith: ‘Do not ask for rulership (al-imāra), for indeed, if you are given it by way of asking you will be solely in charge of it, and if you are given it without asking you will be assisted with it.’”³⁴

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Al-Khaṭīb said, “The Imam³⁵ should scrutinize the muftīs, and whoever is suitable for giving fatwā he should confirm and whoever is unsuitable he should prevent, and he should forbid him from going back and threaten to sanction him if he does go back. The way for the Imam to know who is suitable for fatwā is to ask the scholars of his time, and rely on the reports of those who are trustworthy from amongst them.” Then he³⁶ related, with his own chain of transmission, on the authority of Mālik, Allah have mercy on him, that he said, “I did not give fatwā until seventy people testified that I was qualified to do so.” In another narration: “I did not give fatwā until I asked those who were more knowledgeable than me if they saw me as right to do so.” Mālik said, “A man should not see himself as qualified for anything until he has asked those more knowledgeable than him.”

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They have said, “The muftī should be outwardly careful and be well- known for his outward religiosity and dazzling prudence. Mālik, Allah have mercy on him, would do more than what he had enjoined upon the people. He would say, “One is not a scholar until one does more oneself than what one enjoins upon the people, such that if he were to leave it off he would not be sinning.” He would also narrate something similar from his shaykh Rabīʿa.³⁷

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It is a condition of the muftī to be legally responsible (mukallaf), Muslim, reliable, trustworthy, removed from the causes of iniquity and the violators of respectability (al-murūʾa), a jurist of the self (faqīh al-nafs), of ound intellect, composed thought and sound conduct (al-taṣarruf)³⁸ and derivation (al-istinbāṭ), and vigilant regardless of whether he is dealing with a freeman, a slave, a blind person, or a mute if he writes or his gestures are understood.

Al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ said, “He should be like a narrator (al-rāwī) in that he is not influenced by kinship or animosity, and bringing about benefit and deflecting harm; because the muftī, with regards to a ruling, is informing on behalf of the Revealed Law in that which no individual has jurisdiction. Thus he is like a narrator and not like a witness, and his fatwā does not have an obligation attached to it, as opposed to the judge’s verdict (ḥukm al-qāḍī).” He also said, “The author of al-Ḥāwī mentioned that if the muftī displays animosity in his fatwā towards a specific individual he becomes an antagonistic arbitrator, and his fatwā is rejected with regards to the person he has animosity towards, just as his testifying (shahāda) regarding him would be rejected.”

They have all agreed that it is not valid for an iniquitous person to give fatwā, and al-Khaṭīb has transmitted it as being the consensus of the Muslims. If something happens to him³⁹ he must use his own personal reasoning (ijtihād). As for the one who is veiled, and he is the one who is outwardly just but his inward justice has not been examined, there are two opinions. The most correct of them is that his fatwā is permissible, because his inward justice is difficult to know for those who are not judges.

The second opinion is that it is not permissible, like testifying, and the difference of opinion is like the difference of opinion regarding the validity of a marriage contract in the presence of veiled people.⁴⁰ Al-Ṣaymarī said, “The fatāwā of the people of evil desires (ahl al-hawāʾ)⁴¹ are valid, as well as the Khawārij,⁴² and whomever we do not declare disbelievers because of their innovation nor do we declare to be iniquitous.” Al-Khaṭīb transmitted this and then said, “As for the Shurra⁴³ and the Rāfiḍa,⁴⁴ who insult the righteous first three generations, their fatāwā are rejected and their statements⁴⁵ are omitted.”

The judge is like others with regards to the permissibility of giving fatwā without any dislike. This is the correct and well-known position from our madhhab. Al-Shaykh⁴⁶ said, “I saw in some of the remarks of al-Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid⁴⁷ that he had the fatwā regarding acts of worship (al-ʿibādāt) and that which was not connected to judgeship.” Regarding judgeship, our companions have two opinions. One of them is that it is permissible because he is qualified and the other is that it isn’t because it is a position of accusation (tuhma). Ibn al-Mundhir⁴⁸ said, “It is disliked to give fatwā with regards to issues of rulings in the Revealed Law.”⁴⁹ Al-Shurayḥ⁵⁰ said, “I judge and I do not give fatwā.”⁵¹

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Abū ʿAmr said, “Muftīs fall into two categories: the independent and otherwise.”

The first category: The condition for the independent muftī, along with what we have mentioned, is that he be a custodian with the knowledge of the evidences of the Revealed Law’s ruling from the Book, the Sunna, consensus and analogy, and what is attached to them by way of detail, and they have been laid out in detail in the books of fiqh and facilitated, praise be to Allah. He must be a scholar of what is stipulated concerning evidences, and the various aspects that they indicate, and of how to acquire rulings from them, and this is drawn from the foundations of fiqh. He should know the sciences of the Qurʾān, hadith, the abrogating and the abrogated, grammar, language, morphology, and the differences of opinion amongst the scholars and their agreements to such an extent that he is able to fulfil the conditions of the evidences and take from them. He must have a lot of experience and practice in using that,⁵² and be a scholar of fiqh and its foundational issues as well as its branches. Whoever gathers all of these qualities is an absolute, independent muftī through whom the communal obligation is carried out, and he is an absolute, independent mujtahid, because he acts independently with the evidence without imitating or being restricted to anyone’s madhhab.

Abūʿ Amr said, “What we have stipulated regarding memorizing the issues of fiqh has not been stipulated in many of the well-known books of fiqh, due to it not being a condition for the office of ijtihād, because fiqh is its fruit and thus comes later, and a condition of something cannot come after it.” Al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāyīnī⁵³ stipulated it, as well as his companion Abū Manṣūr al-Baghdādī,⁵⁴ and others. To make it a stipulation for the muftī through whom the communal obligation is carried out is the correct position, even if it is not the case with regards to the independent mujtahid. Furthermore, it is not a condition that all the rulings be in his head. Rather, it suffices for him to have memorized most of them and have easy access to the rest.

[As regards the question] is it a condition for him to know the necessary arithmetic (al-ḥisāb) to emend mathematical juristic issues? Abū Isḥāq and Abū Manṣūr have related a difference of opinion amongst our companions, and the most correct position is that it is a condition. Furthermore, we only stipulate the combining of the abovementioned sciences for an absolute muftī in all the categories of the Revealed Law. As for a muftī in one specific category (bāb), such as the rites of the Ḥajj, or inheritance (al-farāʾiḍ), then it suffices him to know that category, as has been decisively affirmed by al-Ghazālī and his companion Ibn Barhān,⁵⁵ and others. There are those amongst them who forbid it absolutely,⁵⁶ and Ibn al-Ṣabāgh⁵⁷ said it is was only permissible with regards to inheritance. The most correct position is that it is absolutely permissible.

The second category: The muftī who is not independent, and it has been a long time since there was an independent muftī, and fatwā came to beat tributed to the imams of the followed madhhabs.⁵⁸ The attributed muftī has four states:

The first [state] is that he imitates his imam neither in the madhhab nor in his evidences, due to him being described as independent. Rather, he is only attributed to him because he follows his path in ijtihād, and al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāq claimed this quality from amongst our companions, and it has been related from the companions of Mālik, Allah have mercy on him, as well as those of Aḥmad, Dāwūd, and most of the Ḥanafīs that they end edupimitating the imams of their madhhabs. Then he⁵⁹ said, “And the correct position is what the verifying scholars amongst our companions have gone with, and it is that they ended up at the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī, not imitating him, but rather they found his paths of ijtihād to be the most correct and pertinent of paths. When it came to ijtihād they couldn’t avoid following his method and thus they sought to know the rulings according to al-Shāfiʿī’s method.”

Abū ʿAlī al-Sinjī⁶⁰ mentioned something similar to this when he said, “We followed al-Shāfiʿī and no one else because we found his statement to be the most preferred of statements and the most balanced of them. We did not imitate him.” That which they have mentioned corresponds to what al-Shāfiʿī commanded them to and then al-Muzanī⁶¹ at the beginning of his Mukhtaṣar, as well as others, in his statement along with his two notifications: his forbidding of imitating him and of imitating others. Abū ʿAmr said, “The claim that absolutely negates imitation from them is not right and does not fit what is known about their state and the state of most of them.” One of the people of uṣūl⁶² from amongst us has related that there is no independent mujtahid after the age of al-Shāfiʿī. Furthermore, the fatwā of the muftī in this state is like the fatwā of the independent muftī in that it is acted upon and considered in consensus and difference of opinion.

The second state is that he is a mujtahid who is restricted to the madhhab of his imam and he is independent in determining his foundations with the evidence. However, in his evidence he does not go beyond the foundations and principles of his imam. It is a condition that he be a scholar of fiqh and its foundations as well as of the evidences of the rulings in detail. He must also have insight into the procedures of analogies and significations (al-maʿānī), be fully experienced in extraction (al-takhrīj) and derivation, and a custodian with regards to attaching what is not manṣūṣ ʿalayh⁶³ for his imam according to his foundations. He is not stripped of the blemish of imitating⁶⁴ him due to the fact that he lacks some of the tools of the independent muftī, for example, by failing to meet all the conditions of mastering the Hadith or Arabic, and the one who is restricted often fails to meet the conditions of these two. Then he adopts the texts of his imam as foundations and derives from them just as the independent muftī does with the texts of the Revealed Law.⁶⁵ Maybe he will be content with a ruling based on the evidence of his imam, and he will not look for something to contradict it, as the independent muftī does with the texts of the Revealed Law. This is the quality of our companions who are the people of opinions (aṣḥāb al-wujūh), and it is the quality that the imams of our companions were upon, or most of them. The one who acts upon the fatwā of this person is an imitator of the imam⁶⁶ and not the person [himself].

Furthermore, the outward speech of the companions is that the communal obligation is not carried out through a muftī in this state. Abū ʿAmr said, “It is obvious that the obligation is carried out through him with regards to giving fatwā, even though it is not carried out with regards to reviving the sciences (iḥyāʾ al-ʿulūm) from which a fatwā is procured; because he takes the place of his independent imam in deriving branch rulings, according to the correct position.” It is permissible to imitate the dead, and then the restricted person might act independently in an issue or a specific category, as has already been mentioned. He can also give fatwā regarding which there is no text from his imam by extracting it based on his foundations. This is the correct position, which is acted upon and in which the muftīs have sought refuge in for a long time. Furthermore, if he gives a fatwa based on his extraction, then the one asking the question (al-mustaftī) is imitating the imam⁶⁷ and not him. This was decisively affirmed by Imam al-Ḥaramayn⁶⁸ in his book al-Ghiyāthī,⁶⁹ and how abundant are its benefits. Al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr said, “This should be extracted based on a dispute that was related by al-Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī⁷⁰ and others, which concerns that which is extracted by our companions; is it permissible to attribute it to al-Shāfiʿī? The most correct position is that it is not attributed to him.”

Furthermore, sometimes he extracts from a specific text of his imam, and sometimes he doesn’t find it so he extracts based on his foundations by finding an evidence that matches the conditions his imam used as proof. Thus, he gives fatwā according to what it necessitates, for if the imam gives a text regarding something and then gives a text concerning an issue that resembles it that contradicts the former text and thus one extracts from one of them to the other, this is called an extracted position (qawl mukharraj). The condition for this extraction is that one does not find any difference between the two texts, for if he finds any difference between them he must affirm both of them based on their outward purport. They often differ with regards to positions that are extracted in this manner due to their differing over the possibility of a difference.⁷¹

I have said: And in most of that there could be a difference and they mentioned it.

The third state is that one does not reach the rank of the people of opinions, but he is a jurist of the self, has memorized the madhhab of his imam, he knows its evidences, he stands by their affirmation, he illustrates, he edits, he affirms, he paves the way, he declares that which is false and he gives preference. However, he is less than the aforementioned because he is less than them in memorizing the madhhab, or in his experience in derivation, or in his knowledge of the foundations, or he lacks some of the other tools that they possess. This is the attribute of many of the later scholars, up until the late fourth century; the writers who regulated the madhhab and edited it and they produced written works containing most of what people are busy with today, and they didn’t measure up those who came before them in extraction. As for their fatwās, they didn’t expand in detail to the extent that the aforementioned did, or even close. They made analogies regarding that which there was no text (ghayr al-manqūl ʿalayh) without restricting themselves to obvious analogy (al-qiyās al-jallī). There are those amongst them whose fatāwā have been gathered, and in their adherence to the madhhab they have not reached the amount of fatāwā of the people of opinions.

The fourth state is that one is engaged in memorizing the madhhab, transmitting it and understanding it in terms of both its clear matters and its obscure matters, but he has some weakness in affirming its proofs and editing its analogies. This person is relied on in his transmitting and in his fatwā in what he relates from the writings of his madhhab from the texts of his imam, and the branching of the mujtahids in his madhhab, and the same goes for what he doesn’t find to be transmitted if its meaning is found to be transmitted, such that he realizes without a great deal of thought that there is no difference between the two; it is permissible to adhere to it and give fatwā based on it.

The same goes for what he knows to be inserted under a regulator (ḍābiṭ) who paves the way in the madhhab, and what isn’t like that must be refrained from when giving fatwā, and situations like this occur rarely with regards to the aforementioned, since it is unlikely, as Imam al-Ḥaramayn has said, for an issue to occur for which there is no text in the madhhab or even in the meaning of manṣūṣ or inserted under a regulator. The condition for him to be a jurist of the self is that he have an abundant share of fiqh. Abu ʿAmr said, “And what suffices with regards to memorizing the madhhab in this state and that which is before is that most of it is in his mind, and due to his experience he can easily access the rest.”

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These are the classes of the muftīs and they are five,⁷³ and each class stipulates memorizing the madhhab and being a jurist of the self. Thus, whoever applies himself to giving fatwā without possessing this attribute has fallen into an immense matter. Imam al-Ḥaramayn and others have decisively affirmed that the proficient scholar of uṣūl⁷⁴ who discharges his individual duty in fiqh is not allowed to give fatwā based on those qualifications alone. If something happens to him it is incumbent up on him to ask about it, and therein adhere to someone who acts independently,⁷⁵ is keen-eyed and is a researcher from [amongst] the imams who differ with each other and one of the luminaries amongst those who debate, because he is not qualified to obtain the ruling for that incident independently due to his shortage of tools, nor from the madhhab of an imam due to his lack of memorizing it to any considerable degree.

If it is said, “Someone who has memorized a book or more in the madhhab and falls short, and thus is not described with the qualities of any of the aforementioned, if a layperson can’t find anyone besides him in his locality, can he refer to his position?” The answer is that if there is a muftī outside of his locality and he finds a way to access him, then he must try his best to reach him. If that is impossible, then he mentions the issue to this person who falls short. Then he, in turn, if he finds the exact same issue in a book whose veracity is trusted and it is from someone whose reports are accepted, he transmits the issue’s ruling to him as it is written, and the layperson in this case is imitating the imam of the madhhab. Abū ʿAmr said, “I found this implied in the speech of some of them, and the evidence supports it. If he doesn’t find the very issue in written form he must not make an analogy based on the written materials that he has, even if he believes it to be an analogy in which there is no dissimilarity, because he could be mistaken.” If it is said, “Can the imitator give fatwā regarding that which he is imitating?,” we say: Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Ḥalīmī,⁷⁶ Abū Muḥammad al-Juwaynī,⁷⁷ and Abū al-Muḥāsin al-Rūyānī,⁷⁸ as well as others, have decisively affirmed that it is unlawful, while al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī⁷⁹ said it was permissible.

Abū ʿAmr said, “The position of those who prohibit it means that the one who mentions it does not claim it to be from himself. Rather, he attributes it to the imam whom he follows. It is based on this that there are some who consider such a person to be an imitating muftī and not a real muftī, but when they take their place and carry out their function on their behalf they are considered to be among them. Their procedure is for them to say, ‘The madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī is such-and-such…’ or ‘like this’, and if someone fails to attribute it then it suffices if it is known from the context, such that it doesn’t have to be clearly stated, and there is no harm in that.” The author of al-Ḥāwī has mentioned with regards to the layperson that if he knows the ruling for an event based on its evidence then there are three opinions. The first is that it is permissible to give fatwā with it and it is permissible to imitate it, because it is connected to his knowledge just as it is connected for the scholar.⁸⁰ The second opinion is that it is permissible if its evidence is from the Book or the Sunna and not permissible if it is otherwise. The third opinion is that it is absolutely not permissible, and it is the most correct, and Allah knows best.

Section: Regarding the Rulings of the Muftīs; and There Are Several Issues

The first is that giving fatwā is a communal obligation, and thus if one is asked for a fatwā and there is no one else in the locality then answering is an individual obligation upon him. If there is someone else and both are present, then answering is a communal obligation with regards to both of them. If no one else is present,⁸¹ then there are two opinions, the most correct of which is that it is not an individual obligation due to what has already been mentioned from Ibn Abī Laylā.⁸² The second is that it is an individual obligation, and they are like the two opinions regarding testifying. If a layperson asks about something that hasn’t happened,⁸³ then it is not obligatory to respond.

The second is that if he gives a fatwā regarding something and then goes back on it, [and] if the questioner knows that he went back on it and he has not yet acted upon it, then it is not permissible to act upon it; and the same would apply if the questioner got married based on his fatwā and remained married based on his fatwā and then he went back on it. In such a case he would have to separate from her. Likewise, if the ijtihād of the person one is imitating with regards to the direction of prayer changes during the prayer itself, or even if the action was done before he went back on it, if it contradicts decisive evidence then the questioner must nullify that action of his. If it is within the scope of ijtihād then it is not incumbent upon him to nullify it, because an ijtihād is not nullified by another ijtihād. This detail has been mentioned by al-Ṣaymarī, al-Khaṭīb and Abū ʿAmr and they have agreed upon it, and I don’t know of any differing opinion regarding it, and what al-Ghazālī and al-Rāzī⁸⁴ have mentioned does not contain a clear differing.

Abū ʿAmr said, “If he gave a fatwā based on the madhhab of his imam and he went back on it because it became decisively clear to him that it contravened the text of the madhhab of his imam, then it is obligatory to nullify the action, even if it is within the scope of ijtihād, because the text of the madhhab of his imam, as far as he is concerned, is like the text of the Lawgiver with regards to the independent mujtahid.” As for when the questioner doesn’t know that the muftī has gone back on his fatwā, the state of the questioner with regards to his knowledge is as it was before the muftī changed his mind, and the muftī must inform him before he acts upon it, and likewise afterwards since it would obligate nullification.

If he acted upon his fatwā and it led to damage or destruction, and then his mistake became clear, and it contradicted that which is decisive, then according to al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāq he must compensate (yaḍmin)⁸⁵ if he is someone qualified to give fatwā, and he doesn’t compensate if he is unqualified, because the questioner is the one who fell short.⁸⁶ This was likewise related by al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr, and he didn’t comment on it, and it is obscure, and the compensation should be extracted based on the statements⁸⁷ of the deceiving party and those known⁸⁸ in the chapters of wrongfully taken property (al-ghasab)⁸⁹ and marriage (al-nikāḥ)⁹⁰ , and others, or it is decisively affirmed that there is no compensation if there is nothing in the fatwā making it incumbent or compulsory.

The third is that it is unlawful to be negligent in giving fatwā, and if someone is known for doing so then it is unlawful to seek a fatwā from him. Being negligent includes not proceeding with caution, and hastening to give the fatwā before giving it its full right in terms of investigation and reflection. If he already knows the answer because he has been asked about it before, then there is no harm in answering promptly, and this is how what has been related regarding previous scholars answering promptly should be understood.

It is also from negligence for corrupt objectives to induce him to pursue unlawful stratagems, or disliked ones, and to cling to doubtful matters in order to get a concession for someone he wants to benefit, or to be strict towards someone he wants to harm. As for the one whose intention is sound, and he presumed that by seeking stratagems in which there are no doubtful matters that he would free someone from the predicament of an oath, then that is good and favourable, and this is how to understand what has been related from some of the first three generations that are like this, such as the statement of Sufyān: “Knowledge according to us is just concessions from a reliable person. As for strictness, everyone is good at it.” One of the stratagems that contain doubtful matters and are blameworthy is the surayjiyya [91] stratagem used to prevent divorce.

The fourth is that one should not give fatwā in a situation in which his disposition has changed and his heart is preoccupied, and thus he is prevented from contemplation, such as anger, hunger, thirst, overwhelming sadness or joy, drowsiness, weariness, unpleasant heat, a painful illness, the need to relieve himself, or any other situation in which the heart is preoccupied and he is taken beyond the limit of temperance. If he gives fatwā in one of these states and he feels that he did not go beyond what is correct, then it is permissible, even though he was bold to do so.

The fifth is that the chosen position for the one who applies himself to fatwā is to do voluntarily, and it is permissible for him to take some provision from the Muslim treasury (bayt al-māl), unless it is an individual obligation upon him and not a communal, for the correct position is that it is unlawful. Furthermore, if he has some provision then the foundation is that he is not allowed to take a wage, and if he doesn’t have any provision then he cannot take a wage from people of distinction that he gives fatwā for, such as a ruler. Al-Shaykh Abū Ḥātim al-Qazwīnī,⁹² from amongst our companions, resorted to stratagems and said, “He can say, ‘It is incumbent upon me to give you a fatwā verbally. As for writing it down, then no.’” Therefore, if he pays him to write it down then it is permissible. Al-Ṣaymarī⁹³ and al-Khaṭīb said, “If the people of a locality agree to give him provision from their own wealth on the condition that his time be completely free in order to give them fatwā, then it is permissible.” As for gifts, Abū Muẓaffar al-Samʿānī said, “He can accept them, as opposed to the ruler, as his rule is necessary.” Abū ʿAmr said, “Accepting them should be declared unlawful if they are a means of bribery, that is, to get the fatwā that one wants, as in the case of a ruler, and the same goes for everything else for which nothing is accepted in return⁹⁴.” Al-Khaṭīb said, “The Imam⁹⁵ must allocate for the one who has appointed himself to teach fiqh and give fatwā with regards to rulings that which will suffice him from any professional pursuit, and it should be from the Muslim treasury.” Then he narrated with his own chain of transmission that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, Allah be pleased with him, would give every man who had this quality one hundred dīnārs a year.

The sixth is that it is not permissible to give fatwā with regards to oaths, the recognition of rights (al-iqrār), and other similar matters that are connected to expressions (al-alfāẓ), unless he is from the same locality as the speaker, or he has their rank of expertise regarding what is meant by their expressions and what is commonly known (ʿurf) amongst them therein.

The seventh is that it is not permissible for the one whose fatwā are transmitted from the madhhab of an imam, when he relies on books, to rely on other than a book whose veracity is trusted, in that it is the madhhab of that imam. If he is confident that the original copy of the written work bears this attribute but the copy he has is not reliable, then he must seek out other copies that are agreed upon, and confidence may be achieved, in some issues, in a copy that is not trusted if one sees that the speech is uniform, and he is an expert and intelligent and due to his experience he would notice if something had been omitted or altered.

If he can’t find it except in the copy that is not trusted then Abū ʿAmr says that he should investigate. If he finds that it is consistent with the foundations of the madhhab and he is qualified to extract something like it in the madhhab in cases where he can’t find anything transmitted, then he can give fatwā based on it. If he wants to relate it from the person who said it, then he does not say, “al-Shāfiʿī said such-and-such….” Rather, he should say, “According to al-Shāfiʿī, I found such-and-such…,” or “it has reached me that according to al-Shāfiʿī….” If he is not qualified to extract something like it then it is not permissible for him. His job is merely to transmit, and he has not acquired that which would permit him to do the aforementioned. His job is to mention it and not in the form of a fatwā, clearly declaring his state by saying, “I found it in a copy of the book of so-and-so,” or something similar.

I say: It is not permissible for a muftī upon the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī, if he relies upon transmission, to be content with one or two written works, or something similar, from the books of the early scholars or most of the latter-day ones, due to the abundance of differing between them regarding that which is resolved and giving preference to one opinion over another; because this aforementioned muftī is transmitting the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī, and he has not acquired confidence that what is in the two aforementioned books, or something similar, is the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī, or that it is the preferred position when there is a difference of opinion, and this is something that is indisputable regarding those at the lowest levels of the madhhab. Indeed, an issue could be resolved according to ten written works but then irregular (shādh) according to the person who is preferred (al-rājiḥ) in the madhhab, and he disagrees with the majority. Maybe he will disagree with the text of al-Shāfiʿī or several texts of his, and we will see in this commentary (al-sharḥ)⁹⁶, if Allah the Exalted so wills, examples of this. I hope that the completion of this book will allow one to be free of every other book and through it the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī will be decisively known, if Allah the Exalted so wills.

The eighth is that if he gives fatwā regarding an incident and then an incident similar to it occurs, [and] if he remembers the first fatwā and its evidence—that is, according to the foundation of the Revealed Law if he is independent and according to his madhhab if he is attributed—then he gives fatwā regarding it without any further investigation. The most correct position is that it is obligatory to re-investigate, and it is similar to the judge when he gives a verdict based on ijtihād and then the issue occurs again, and likewise one renews one’s search for water with regards to tayammum,⁹⁷ and one’s ijtihād with regards to the prayer direction, and there are two opinions regarding these two. Al-Qāḍī Abī Ṭayyib⁹⁸ said in his remarks at the end of the chapter on facing the prayer direction, “And likewise the layperson, if an issue happens to him he should ask about it, and if it happens again it is incumbent upon him to ask a second time,” that is, according to the most correct position; and then he said, “unless it is an issue that happens often, and it would be difficult to keep asking about it. Thus, it would not be incumbent upon him, and asking about it the first time is sufficient due to the difficulty involved.”

The ninth is that one should not limit oneself when giving fatwā to saying, “There is a difference of opinion in this issue,” or “two positions,” or “two opinions,” or “two narrations,” or “that goes back to the opinion of the judge,” etc., as these are not answers. What the questioner is seeking is clarification that he can act upon, and thus one should give him a resolute answer that is the preferred opinion. If he doesn’t know it then he should refrain until it is manifest or he should leave off giving fatwā, as was done by a group of senior Companions who refrained from giving fatwā with regards to a forgetful person who violates an oath.

Section: On the Etiquettes of Fatwā; and There Are Several Issues

The first is that the muftī must give a clear answer that removes any obscurity, and then he can restrict himself to answering orally. If he doesn’t know the language of the questioner then it suffices him to have it translated by one reliable person, because it is a piece of information. He can also write down the answer, even though there is some risk in doing so. Al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥāmid⁹⁹ would often flee from giving fatwā on pieces of paper. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “It is not from etiquette for the question to be in the handwriting of the muftī. As for in his dictation and his correction, then it is allowed.” Al-Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī would write the question on a piece of paper belonging to him and then he would write the answer. If there are several issues on the piece of paper, then the best thing is to arrange the answer according to the question; but if he doesn’t arrange it, then there’s no harm in that, and it resembles the meaning of Allah the Exalted’s statement: ...on a Day when faces are whitened and faces are blackened. As for those who faces are blackened....¹⁰⁰ If there is some detail in the issue then the answer is not to be dispatched, for that would be a mistake. Moreover, he can seek further details from the questioner if he is present, and write down the question on a piece of paper. Then he can answer, and that is foremost and safer. He can also limit himself to answering one of the questions if he knows that it is the questioner’s actual situation, and he says, “This is how it is if the case is such-and-such.”¹⁰¹ He can also break down the questions in his answer and mention the ruling for each question, but this was disliked by Abū al-Ḥasan from amongst the imams of the Mālikīs, and others, and they said, “This is teaching immoral people.” If the muftī can’t find the person who asked him, then he should break down the questions and work diligently to explain them and present them in detail.

The second is that he should not write the answer based on what he knows of the illustration of the event if it is not on the piece of paper that is presented to him. Rather, he should answer what is on the paper. If he wants to answer what isn’t on it, then he should say, “If the case is such-and-such, then the answer is such-and-such.” The scholars have recommended that one provide more in one’s answer than what is on the paper if it is related to what the questioner needs, based on the hadith: “Its water is purifying (al-ṭuhūr) and what dies therein is lawful to eat.”¹⁰²

The third is that if the questioner has a hard time understanding, then he should be gentle with him, and be patient with understanding his question and making him understand his answer, for indeed his award will be abundant.

The fourth is that he should unequivocally contemplate the piece of paper, and the last part of it with certainty, for indeed the question is in the last part, and indeed all of it could be limited to one word at the end which is overlooked. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “One of the scholars said, ‘The way he deliberates with a simple issue should be the way he deliberates with a difficult issue, so that he gets used to it,’ and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan¹⁰³ would do this.” If he finds a word that is ambiguous he should ask the questioner about it, as well as its pronunciation and vocalization. Likewise, if he finds a gross grammatical error, or a mistake, he changes it to that which is most suitable. If he sees a blank space in the middle of a line or at the end of it, he should draw a line over it, or fill it in, because maybe the questioner left it there to harm the muftī, by writing something in the blank space that would corrupt the fatwā after it had been given, as al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥāmid al-Marwarūdhī was tried with.

The fifth is that it is recommended to read it out to those who are present from amongst those who are qualified to do so, and to consult them and discuss it with them with kindness and just treatment, even if they are less than him and his students, in order to emulate the first three generations. He should hope that whatever was hidden from him will be manifested, unless there is something therein that would be repulsive to bring out, or which the questioner would prefer not to be disclosed, or would cause some harm by being circulated.

The sixth is that he writes the answer in clear, medium handwriting, not delicate and hardly visible nor thick and coarse. He should not make the space between the lines too wide or too narrow, and the wording should be clear and sound such that the laity would understand, but at the same time would not be scorned by the elite. One of them recommended that one not change one’s pens or one’s handwriting for fear of forgery, and so that one’s handwriting is not doubted. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “Forgery is rarely discovered with regards to a muftī, because Allah the Exalted guards the affair of the religion.” Once he has written his answer he should look over it for fear of any shortcoming that may have occurred therein, or an infringement of some of what he was asked about.

The seventh is that if he is a beginner, then the custom of old and until today is to write towards the left of the page. Al-Ṣaymarī and others have said, “And wherever he writes, from the middle of the page or in its margins, he is not censured for it.” By no mean should he write above the basmala,¹⁰⁴ and he should supplicate if he wants to give fatwā. It has come from Makḥūl¹⁰⁵ and Mālik, Allah have mercy on him, that they would not give a fatwā until they had said, “There is no strength or power except in Allah.” It is recommended to seek refuge from Shayṭān and start with the name of Allah, to praise him and to send prayers upon the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Then he should say: “O Lord, expand my breast…” (Q Ṭā-hā 20:25) and the rest of the supplication in the verse¹⁰⁶ and that which is similar. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “The habit of many is to begin their fatāwā with, ‘The answer, and with Allah is every success…’,” while others have omitted it. If he does that for a long list of issues that includes sections and he omits it elsewhere then that is a way of doing things.

I say: The chosen position is that one should say that absolutely, and it is best to begin by saying, “Praise be to Allah” (al-ḥamdu lillāh), due to the hadith, “Every important matter that is not started with al-ḥamdu lillāh is cut off¹⁰⁷.” He should say it with his tongue as well as write it. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “He should not omit concluding his answer by saying, ‘And with Allah is every success’, or ‘and Allah knows best’, or ‘and Allah is the One Who grants success.’” He also said, “It is not repulsive for him to say, ‘The answer according to us…’, or ‘According to us…’, or, ‘What we say is…’, or ‘What we go with is…’, or ‘Our opinion is…’, etc., because he is someone qualified to do so.” He also said, “If the questioner omits supplicating for the muftī or sending prayers upon the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, then the muftī should add it at the end of the fatwā in his own handwriting, for it is the custom to do so.”

I say: Once he has concluded his answer by saying, “And Allah knows best,” or something similar from what has been mentioned, he should then write after that, “Written by so-and-so,” or “so-and-so the son of so- and-so from such-and-such place” (fulān bin fulān al-fulānī), and he is thus attributed to what is known about him, such as a tribe, a locality¹⁰⁸ or an attribute. Then he says, “al-Shāfiʿī’ or ‘al-Ḥanafī,”¹⁰⁹ for example. If he is well-known by a certain name or something else then there is no harm in shortening it. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “Some of them have held the opinion that the muftī should write in midād as opposed to ḥibr¹¹⁰ for fear of it being rubbed out.” He also said, “What is recommended is ḥibr and nothing else.”

I say: Neither of them is specifically recommended, as opposed to books of knowledge, because they are written to last longer and ḥibr is longer lasting. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “If he attaches the fatwā to the ruler he should supplicate for him, by saying: ‘And upon the one in charge of our affairs…’ or ‘the ruler, may Allah rectify him…’, or ‘may Allah guide him’, or ‘may Allah strengthen his resolve’, or ‘may Allah rectify through him’, or ‘may Allah increase his strength’. He should not say, ‘may Allah grant him a long life’, for this is not from the expressions of the first three generations.”

I say: Abū Jaʿfar al-Naḥḥās¹¹¹ and others have transmitted the agreement of the scholars regarding the fact that it is disliked to say, “May Allah grant you a long life.” One of them said that it is the greeting of the zanādiqa.¹¹² In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, in the hadith of Umm Ḥabība,¹¹³ Allah be pleased with her, there is an indication that the priority is to leave off supplications like this that ask for a long life.¹¹⁴

The eighth is that he should keep his answer brief, and be understandable for the laity. The author of al-Ḥāwī said, “He should say that it is permissible or not permissible, or true or false.” His shaykh, al-Ṣaymarī, related from his shaykh, al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥāmid, that he would make his answers as short as possible; he was once asked about an issue and at the end it said, “Is it permissible or not?” He wrote, “No, and with Allah is every success.”

The ninth is what has been stated by al-Ṣaymarī and al-Khaṭīb: “If he is asked about someone who said, ‘I am more truthful than Muḥammad the son of ʿAbdullāh’,¹¹⁵ or ‘Prayer is a game’, or something of that nature, he should not rush to say, ‘This person’s blood is lawful’, or ‘This person must be killed’. Rather, he should say, ‘If this is true and has been confirmed or there is clear evidence then the ruler should ask him to repent. If he repents then his repentance is accepted. If he doesn’t repent then the ruler does such- and-such, and does his utmost to fulfil his duties.¹¹⁶’” He said, “If he is asked about someone who said something of which part could be blasphemous,¹¹⁷ he should say, ‘The person who said this should be asked. If he says that what he meant was such-and-such then the answer is such-and-such.’ If he is asked about someone who has committed murder, or plucked an eye out, or something else, he should be cautious and then mention all the conditions that would necessitate retaliation (al-qiṣāṣ). If he is asked about someone who has done something that would necessitate reprimand (al-taʿzīr) he should mention how he is to be reprimanded, by saying, ‘The ruler should whip him such-and-such, and not more than such-and-such.’” This is the speech of al-Ṣaymarī, al-Khaṭīb and others. Abū ʿAmr said, “If retaliation or reprimand has been prescribed for him based on its condition, then that is not absolute.

Rather, it is restricted by its condition, and the ruler asks about its condition, and clarification of his state is more important.”

The tenth is that if there is not much space to write the answer he should not write it on another piece of paper, for fear of trickery. This is why they have said, “He should make his answer reach the last line, and not leave a space for the questioner to add something that may corrupt it. If the space designated for the answer is a piece of paper that has been stuck together with an adhesive, he should write over the adhesive, and if there is not enough space on the inside of the paper he should write the answer on the outside, and write it on the top unless he is starting from the bottom, connecting it to the question. Thus, the space is restricted and he completes it on the bottom of the outside so that his answer is connected.” The chosen position of one of them is that he write on the outside and not in the margins. The chosen position according to al-Ṣaymarī and others is that the margin takes priority over the outside. Al-Ṣaymarī and others have said, “The matter therein is close.”

The eleventh is that if it becomes clear to the muftī that the answer will not match the objective of the questioner, and that he would not be pleased with him writing it on his piece of paper, he should limit himself to answering him orally, and let him be warned against inclining in his fatwā, either towards the questioner or his antagonist, and the means of inclination are many and not hidden. One of them is that one writes in the answer that which is in his favour but omits that which isn’t. He cannot get involved in issues of claims and clear proofs¹¹⁸ as if he is someone who is completely impartial. If one of them asks him and says, “Based on what do such-and-such claims proceed?,” or, “such-and-such and clear proofs?,” he should not answer for fear of some right be nullified. He can ask him about his state with regards to what he’s claiming, and if he explains it to him then he can identify for him that which supports the claim and that which doesn’t. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “If the muftī sees a way out for the questioner, he should guide him to it and point it out to him,” meaning something that will not harm anyone else without right. He said, “For example, someone who swears an oath that he will not spend on his wife for one month. He should tell him to give to her from her dowry, or a loan or a sale and he will pay her back later, and this is similar to what has been related about a man who said to Abū Ḥanīfa, Allah have mercy on him, ‘I swore an oath that I would have sexual intercourse with my wife during the day in Ramaḍān and not carry out any expiation nor commit any disobedience.’ He replied, ‘Travel with her.’”¹¹⁹

The twelfth is that al-Ṣaymarī said, “If the muftī sees that the benefit would lie in giving a harsh fatwā to the layperson, and the muftī does not believe in its outward import but it can be interpreted, then that is permissible to deter the layperson. For example, it has been related on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, Allah be pleased with both of them, that he was asked about the repentance of a murderer. He said, ‘There is no repentance for him.’ Someone else asked him and he said, ‘There is repentance for him.’¹²⁰ He then said, ‘As for the first person, I saw in his eyes a desire to kill, so I prevented him. As for the second, he came submissively because he had killed so I didn’t want to drive him to despair.’” Al-Ṣaymarī said, “If a man asks him by saying, ‘If I kill my slave, will retaliation (al-qiṣāṣ) be binding with regards to me?’, it is permissible for him to say, ‘If you kill your slave then we will kill you.’ It has been related from the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, that he said, “We will kill whoever kills his slave.”’” This is also because killing has meanings. He said, “If he were to be asked about whether insulting a Companion would necessitate being killed, it is permissible for him to say, ‘It has been related from the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, that he said, “If someone curses a Companion of mine, kill him.”’ All of this is done to deter the layperson, and those who lack in their religion and respectability.”¹²¹

The thirteenth is that when the muftī has several papers in his presence he must give precedence based on first come first served, just as a judge does with regards to lawsuits. And this concerns that for which a fatwā must be given. If they are all the same, or he doesn’t know which one came first, then precedence is given based on drawing lots. The correct position is that it is permissible to give precedence to a woman and a traveller who has had a difficult journey, and delaying him would hold him back from his travel group, and similar matters that would make it understandable to give them precedence. This is unless there are so many travellers and women that others would be greatly harmed by them being given precedence, so in that case he should revert to first come first served or draw lots. Then he should not give precedence to anyone unless it is just one fatwā.

The fourteenth is that al-Ṣaymarī and Abū ʿAmr said, “If he is asked about inheritance then it is not the custom to stipulate that in order for someone to inherit they must not be a slave, a disbeliever or the killer of the deceased, or other preventives of inheritance. This is already understood, as opposed to dealing with a case in which there are brothers, sisters, uncles, and their children. In such a case he must say in his answer, ‘From a father and mother…’, or ‘From a father…’ or ‘From a mother….’” If he is asked about an issue of ʿawl¹²² such as al-minbariyya,¹²³ which is when the deceased leaves behind a wife, both parents and two daughters, he should not say that the wife gets an eighth, or a ninth, because this was not stated by anyone from the first three generations. Rather, he should say that she has an eighth based on ʿawl and it is three shares out of twenty-seven, or simply that she has three shares out of twenty-seven. Or, he can say what the Commander of the Believers, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Allah be pleased with him, said, “Her eighth is a ninth.” If amongst those mentioned on the question paper are some people who will not inherit, then he should make that clear, and say, “So-and-so will not inherit.” If the person’s lack of inheritance is only in some cases and not others, then he should say, “So-and-so will not inherit in this case,” or something similar so that it is not imagined that the person can never inherit by any means.¹²⁴

If he is asked about brothers and sisters or sons and daughters then he should not say, “A male receives the same as the share of two females,”¹²⁵ because that could be confusing for a layperson. Rather, he should divide the inheritance into however many shares and then say that each male gets such-and-such share and each female gets such-and-such share. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “al-Shaykh said, ‘We find that in deliberately refraining from it there is hatred within oneself; because it is the words of the Mighty Qurʾān,¹²⁶ and how rarely is its meaning hidden from anyone. In answering issues of munāsakhāt¹²⁷ he should be especially cautious and on his guard.

He should say therein that so-and-so gets such-and-such inheritance from his father, then from his mother, then from his brother.’” Al-Ṣaymarī said, “Some of them would choose to say that so-and-so gets such-and-such share; his inheritance from his father is such-and-such, from his mother such-and-such and from his brother such-and-such.” He also said, “All of that is close.” Al-Ṣaymarī and others have said, “It is good to say that the division of the inheritance is after what must be given precedence, such as debts or bequests (al-waṣiyya), if there are any.”

The fifteenth is that if the muftī sees handwriting on the question paper from someone else who is qualified to give fatwā, and what he has written therein agrees with his own opinion, then al-Khaṭīb and others have said, “Underneath his handwriting he should write, ‘This is a correct answer and it is my position’, or he can write, ‘My answer is the same’. If he wants, he can mention the ruling in a more concise manner than that of the other muftī.” As for when he sees handwriting therein from someone who is not qualified to give fatwā, then al-Ṣaymarī has said, “He does not give fatwā alongside him, because that would be an affirmation on his behalf for something that is reprehensible (munkar).¹²⁸ Instead, he should strike it out with the permission of the owner of the paper, and even if he doesn’t ask his permission it is still permissible, but he should not hold on to the paper unless he has the owner’s permission.” He also said, “He can rebuke and reprimand the questioner and explain to him the ignominy of what he did, and that it is an obligation upon him to look for someone who is qualified to give fatwā and seek out those who are qualified to do so.” If he sees therein the name of someone he doesn’t know he should ask about him. If he doesn’t know him then he is allowed to refrain from giving fatwā alongside him for fear of what we have just mentioned. He also said, “In this situation, one of them would write on the back of the paper.” He also said, “The priority in situations like these is that the owner is shown that the fatwā¹²⁹ will be replaced, and if he refuses then he should answer him orally.”

Abū ʿAmr said, “If he fears some tribulation (fitna) as a result of striking out the fatwā of the one who isn’t qualified and there is no mistake that would make one refrain from giving fatwā alongside him, then if his fatāwā have become predominant due to him taking over such a position based on rank,¹³⁰ or deception, or something else, such that the questioners would be harmed if the qualified muftī refrained from giving fatwā alongside him, then he should give fatwā alongside him, for indeed that is the lesser of two evils. He should also be wary of manifesting the other person’s shortcomings¹³¹ to those who are unaware of it. As for when he finds a fatwā from someone who is qualified but it is completely wrong because it contravenes decisive proof, or it is an unquestionable mistake according to the madhhab of the one giving the fatwā, then it is not permissible for him to refrain from giving fatwā and not draw attention to the mistake if there is no one else who will do it. Rather, he must strike it out when possible or replace it, and cut up the piece of paper with the owner’s permission, or something similar. If he is not able to and no one else will do it then he should write the correct answer next to the mistake.

Furthermore, if the one who made the mistake is qualified to give fatwā then it is good to send it back to him with the owner’s¹³² permission. As for when he finds therein a fatwā of someone who is qualified and it differs from his own opinion without being decisively wrong,¹³³ then he simply writes his own answer without objecting to the other fatwā by declaring it wrong or rebutting it.” The author of al-Ḥāwī said, “It is not acceptable for a muftī, when he is asked, to object to someone else’s answer by rebutting it, nor should he declare it wrong. Rather, he should answer and give his own opinion, regardless of whether it agrees or disagrees.”

The sixteenth is that if the muftī does not understand the question at all and the person who experienced the event is not present, then al-Ṣaymarī says, “He should write that he needs more elucidation in order to give an answer, or that he doesn’t understand the contents sufficiently in order to answer.” He also said, “One of them held the position that he shouldn’t write anything at all.” He also said, “I have seen one of them write regarding this that the questioner should be present so that they can address him orally.” Al-Khaṭīb said, “If he doesn’t understand how to answer then he should guide the questioner to another muftī if there is one, and if there isn’t then he should refrain until he knows the answer.” Al-Ṣaymarī said, “If there are several issues on the question paper and he understands some of them and not others, or he understands all of them and doesn’t want to answer some of them, or he needs to contemplate or further examine some of them, then he answers the ones he wants to and remains silent regarding the rest. He should say, ‘Regarding the rest, we need to investigate,’ or ‘contemplate’, or ‘investigate further.’”

The seventeenth is that it is not reprehensible for the muftī to mention the proof in his fatwā if it is a brief, clear text. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “He does not mention the proof if he is giving fatwā to a layman and he does mention it if he is giving fatwā to a jurist, such as someone asking about getting married without a guardian, in which case it is good to say the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “There is no marriage except with a guardian” (la nikāḥ illā bi walī);¹³⁴ or about taking back (al-rajʿa)¹³⁵ a divorced wife after consummation of the marriage. One should state that he can take her back, and that Allah the Exalted has said, Their husbands have the right to take them back within that time (Q al-Baqara 2:228).” He also said, “It is not a customary habit for one to mention the method of ijtihād in his fatwā, the direction of the analogy,¹³⁶ or the inference (al-istidlāl), unless the fatwā is connected to the paying back of a loan, in which case he indicates the method of ijtihād and makes it brilliantly incisive. The same applies if someone else gives a fatwā and there is an error in it, in which case he does so in order to draw attention to what he is going with, even if there is some obscurity in that which he is giving fatwā about.

Thus, it is good to make it shine with its proofs.” The author of al-Ḥāwī said, “He doesn’t mention the proof so that there can be a difference between fatwā and writing books. If one accepts to overstep a little bit one will accept to overstep a great deal, and the muftī will become a teacher.” The details that we have mentioned take precedence over the absolute restraint of the author of al-Ḥāwī. In certain circumstances the muftī may need to intensify and go to greater lengths, and thus say, “This is the consensus of the Muslims,” or “I don’t know of any difference of opinion regarding this,” or “whoever goes against has gone against what is obligatory, and deviated from the correct position,” or “he has sinned and committed iniquity,” or “the ruler must adopt this and not neglect the matter,” and other similar expressions depending on what benefit requires and what the situation necessitates.

The eighteenth is what al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr, Allah have mercy on him, has said, “If he is asked about issues of scholastic theology (al-kalām), then it is not for him to give a fatwā in detail. Rather, he should forbid the questioner and the rest of the laity from delving into that, or even a bit of it, even if it is small, and he should command them to limit themselves to faith (al-īmān) in general without going into detail, and that they say therein and with regards to every verse that discusses the attributes¹³⁷ and the reports about them that are allegorical (mutashābiha): ‘Indeed we affirm what they contain and in a way that is befitting of Allah’s Majesty, Blessed and Exalted is He, as well as His Perfection and absolute Sanctification’. Then one should say, ‘This is our belief regarding them and it is not obligatory upon us to go into details and specifics, nor is it our job to look into it. Rather, we entrust the knowledge of its details to Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and we turn our hearts and our tongues away from delving into it.” This and similar statements is the correct position from the imams of fatwā in this regard, and it is the way of the first three generations of this Umma, the imams of the considered madhhabs,¹³⁸ the great scholars and the righteous, and it is more prudent and safer for the faity and those like them.

If one of them holds a false belief in some issue of detail then he should guide him away from that false belief with that which is more prudent, simpler and safer. If the ruler reprimands whoever deviates from amongst them, then he is following the example of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, Allah be pleased with him, as he reprimanded Ṣabīʾ, who used to ask about verses and reports that were open to interpretation. He also said, “The scholastic theologians (al-mutakallimūn) from amongst our companions acknowledge the veracity of this method, and that it is safer for the one whom it is laid down for.” Al-Ghazālī was amongst them towards the end of his life: going to the greatest lengths in calling towards it and demonstrating it; and his shaykh, Imam al-Ḥaramayn, mentioned in his book, al-Ghiyāthī, that the Imam¹³⁹ should strive as much as possible to gather the laity of the creation upon the way of the first three generations in that regard.

Al-Ghazālī was asked about the speech of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, and part of his answer was, “As for delving into the Exalted’s Speech as to whether or not it consists of letters and sounds, this is innovation (bidʿa), and whoever calls the laity to delve into this is not from the imams of the religion. Rather, he is one of those who leads astray, and he is like someone who invites children who can’t swim well to swim in the deepest parts of the sea, or someone who invites a chronically ill, infirm person to travel through open country without a means of transport.” He said in one of his letters, “The correct position is for all of creation, apart from that rare, unique person whom each age only allows one or two to exist in, to travel the path of the first three generations in having the faith that has been revealed and affirming in general everything that has been revealed (al-īmān al-mursal wal-taṣdīq al-mujmal)¹⁴⁰ by Allah the Exalted and informed of by the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, without research or investigation or being preoccupied with fatwā, for that contains work for the one who is preoccupied with it.”¹⁴¹

Al-Ṣaymarī said in his book Adab al-muftī wal-mustaftī, “What the people of taqwā have made consensus on is that this is not befitting of someone who is characterized by giving fatwā in fiqh.” In another copy: “It is not permissible for him to write any fatwā concerning issues of scholastic theology.” He also said, “One of them would not even finish reading question papers like that.” He also said, “One of them would dislike to write, ‘This is not from our knowledge,’ or ‘We have not gathered for this,’ or ‘Asking about something else would be better.’ Rather, he wouldn’t subject himself to any of that.”

The imam, the ḥāfiẓ, the jurist, Abūʿ Umaribnʿ Abdal-Barr,¹⁴² has related refrainment in all of that from the jurists and the scholars, of old and until today, from the people of hadith and of fatwā. He said, “The only people who go against that are the people of innovation.” Al-Shaykh said, “If the issue is one from which none of the aforementioned harms of delving is feared, [and] if one answers in detail, then it is permissible to answer in detail, and that is by the answer being short and understandable and not having any parts that would attract those who like to dispute, the question is from someone who is seeking to be guided and to be lead and he is from a people who don’t often argue and dispute, and the muftī is someone whose fatāwā are obeyed.” This and similar matters is how to understand what has come to us regarding some of the first three generations giving certain fatāwā regarding certain issues of scholastic theology, and that was rare and seldom on their part, and Allah knows best.

The nineteenth is what al-Ṣaymarī and al-Khaṭīb, Allah have mercy on them, said, “If a jurist is asked about an issue concerning the exegesis (tafsīr) of the Mighty Qurʾān, if it is connected to rulings, then he should answer it, and he should write with his own handwriting; such as someone asking about the middle prayer (al-ṣalāt al-wusṭā)¹⁴³ , or periods (qurūʾ)¹⁴⁴ , or the one in charge of the marriage contract (biyadihi ʿuqdat un-nikāḥ).¹⁴⁵ If it’s not from the issues of rulings, such as a question about al-raqīm,¹⁴⁶ al-naqīr,¹⁴⁷ al-qaṭmīr,¹⁴⁸ or al-ghislīn,¹⁴⁹ then he refers it to its people and entrusts it to those who have appointed themselves to be from the people of exegesis, and if he answers him orally then it is not reprehensible.” This is the speech of al-Ṣaymarī and al-Khaṭīb, and if it were said that it would be good to write it for the jurist who knows it, then that’s good, and what difference is there between that and the issues connected to rulings? And Allah knows best.

Section: On the Etiquettes of the Questioner (al-mustaftī), His Description, and His Rulings; and There Are Several Issues

The first of them is regarding the description of the questioner. Anyone who has not reached the level of muftī is, with regards to the rulings of the Revealed Law that he asks about, a questioner who imitates the one who gives him fatwā. The chosen definition of imitation (al-taqlīd) is that one accepts the position of someone who could be persistently wrong without any proof of the source that would make his position acceptable. If something happens to him regarding which he must know the ruling, then he has to ask for a fatwā. If he can’t find anyone to ask in his locality then he must travel to someone who can give him a fatwā, even if he lives far away. Some of the first three generations would travel for days and nights for the sake of one issue.

The second is that he must decisively search for someone known to be qualified whom he can ask for a fatwā. If he doesn’t know him to be qualified then it is not permissible for him to seek a fatwā from someone who is affiliated with knowledge and has been appointed to teach, have people read to him and other positions held by scholars simply because of their affiliation and their appointment to that position. It is permissible to seek a fatwā from someone who is well-known for being qualified for giving fatwā. One of our latter-day companions said, “He should only rely on his statement, ‘I am qualified to give fatwā’, not his reputation, nor does it suffice that he is well-known and constantly spoken about (al-tawātur), because being well-known and having a reputation amongst the laity is not something reliable, and the very foundation of it could be fraud. As for being spoken about constantly, this does not indicate knowledge unless it is based on something known and tangible.” The correct position is the former, because his engaging in fatwā informs us that he is qualified, for indeed the outward form is presumed with regards to the one whose religiosity is trusted. It is also permissible to seek a fatwā from someone whom the well-known, aforementioned person has told us is qualified. Al-Shaykh Abū Isḥāq, the author,¹⁵⁰ as well as others, have said, “It is acceptable if one upright person informs that he is qualified.” Abū ʿAmr said, “We should stipulate for the one who reports that he have knowledge and insight that enables him to distinguish that which is dubious from that which isn’t, and one should not rely therein on the information of a few laypeople due to the frequency in which they are deceived.” If two or more gather from amongst those one is permitted to seek a fatwā from, is one thus obliged to employ personal reasoning as to which of them is most knowledgeable, and to search for the most knowledgeable, most careful (al-awraʿ), and most trustworthy of them so that he can imitate him and no one else? There are two opinions:

The first is that it is not obligatory. Rather, he asks whichever one of them he wants, because they are all qualified, and we have removed personal reasoning from the laity. This opinion is the correct one according to our Iraqi companions. They have said, “It is the position of most of our companions.”

The second is that it is obligatory, because this amount of personal reasoning would enable him to research and ask and look at evidences of states. This opinion is the position of Abū al-ʿAbbās Ibn Surayj, the chosen position of al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī, and it is correct according to al-Qāḍī Ḥusayn.¹⁵¹ The first is the most prominent,¹⁵² and it is prominent from the state of the early scholars. Abū ʿAmr, Allah have mercy on him, said, “However, when he becomes aware of who is more trustworthy then the most prominent position is that it is incumbent upon him to follow him, just as it is obligatory to give precedence to the more preferable of two evidences and the more reliable of two narrations.” Thus, based on this, it is incumbent upon him to imitate the more careful of two scholars and the more knowledgeable of two careful people, and if one of them is more knowledgeable and the other more careful, he imitates the more knowledgeable one according to the most correct position.

Regarding the permissibility of imitating the deceased, there are two opinions. The correct one is that it is permissible, because the madhhabs don’t die with the death of their codifiers, and this is why, after their time, they are still relied on in matters of consensus and difference of opinion, and because the death of a witness before the verdict has been given does not prevent the verdict from being based on his testimony, as opposed to his iniquity. The second is that it is not permissible because his qualification has lapsed like that of an iniquitous person, and this is weak, especially in these times.

The third: is it permissible for the lay person to choose and imitate whatever madhhab he wants? Al-Shaykh said, “There is discussion as to whether one is attributed to a madhhab, and we have based it on two opinions that have been related by al-Qāḍī Ḥusayn regarding the layperson: does he have a madhhab or not? One of them is that he does not have a madhhab because a madhhab is for the one who knows the evidences, and based on this he can ask whomever he wants, whether that person is Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, or something else. The second, which is the most correct according to al-Qaffāl, is that he does have a madhhab and it is not permissible for him to contradict it,” and we have mentioned with regards to the attributed muftī what he is allowed to contradict his imam in. If he is not attributed then there are two opinions that have been related by Ibn Burhān regarding the layperson: is it incumbent upon him to adopt a specific madhhab and follow its concessions as well as its strictness? One of them is that it is not incumbent upon him, just as it wouldn’t have been incumbent upon him in the first age to imitate one specific scholar. Based on this, can he ask whomever he wants or is it obligatory upon him to look for the most stringent of the madhhabs and the soundest of them in terms of foundations in order to follow its people? There are two opinions that have been mentioned and they are like the two aforementioned opinions regarding looking into who is the more knowledgeable and more trustworthy of two muftīs. The second is that it is incumbent upon him, and this was decisively affirmed by Abū al-Ḥasan Ilkiyā,¹⁵³ and it applies to anyone who has not reached the level of ijtihād from amongst the jurists and the scholars of other sciences.

As for the opinion that it is permissible to follow any madhhab one wants, this would lead to one gathering the concessions of the madhhabs out of following one’s own base desires, and choosing between that which has been declared lawful and that which has been declared unlawful, the obligatory and the merely permissible, and that in turn would lead to the noose of legal responsibility being loosened, as opposed to the first age, for indeed the madhhabs that comprised the rulings for events hadn’t been refined, even though they were known.¹⁵⁴ Based on this, it is incumbent upon him to employ personal reasoning in choosing a madhhab to specifically follow, and we have paved an easy way for him to travel in his personal reasoning. Thus, we say that it is not for him to merely follow therein his desires and incline towards what he has found his parents and ancestors to be upon. It is not for him to adopt the madhhab of any of the imams of the Companions, Allah be pleased with them, or anyone else from that time, even though they were more knowledgeable and of a higher rank than those who came after, because they did not apply themselves to writing down knowledge and regulating its foundations and branches. Thus, none of them have a refined, edited, and affirmed madhhab. Those who did so are those who came after from among the imams who were ascribed to the madhhabs of the Companions and the Followers and prepared the rulings for events before they happened and were diligent in clarifying their foundations and branches, such as Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfa, and others.

And when al-Shāfiʿī came later in time than these imams and investigated their madhhabs in the same way that they investigated the madhhabs before them, he examined them, became thoroughly acquainted with them, criticized them, and chose the most preferable of them. He found that those who had come before him had spared him the trouble of moulding and founding, thus allowing him to devote himself to choosing, giving preference, perfecting, checking with his complete knowledge and proficiency in the sciences in addition to his being preferred over those who came before him. Then there was no one after him who reached his rank. His madhhab was the foremost of the madhhabs to be followed and imitated, and this, along with the fairness that it contains and its being free of reproach with regards to any of the imams, makes it clear and obvious that if the layperson reflects on the matter it will lead him to choose the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī and adopt it.

The fourth is that if two muftīs each give him a different fatwā, then the companions have five opinions. The first is that he takes the stricter of the two. The second is that he takes the more lenient one. The third is that he employs personal reasoning with regards to what is foremost and thus takes the fatwā of the one who is more knowledgeable and more careful, as has been clarified, and this is the chosen position of al-Samʿānī the Elder; and the text of al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah be pleased with him, is similar with regards to the prayer direction. The fourth is that he asks another muftī and then takes the fatwā that agrees with his fatwā. The fifth is that he chooses, and thus takes the position of either of them that he wishes, and this is the most correct position according to al-Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, the author, and al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, and it has also been transmitted by al-Maḥāmilī¹⁵⁵ at the beginning of al-Majmūʿ from most of our companions. It is also the chosen position of the author of al-Shāmil¹⁵⁶ if one regards both muftīs as equal.

Al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr said, “The chosen position is that one must look into which is the more preferable and act upon it, for indeed it is the ruling of incompatibility (al-taʿāruḍ), and thus one looks into who is the more reliable of the two muftīs and acts upon his fatwā, and if he can’t find any preference for one over the other, he asks another muftī and acts upon the fatwā that agrees with his fatwā. If that is not possible and the difference of opinion is regarding whether something is unlawful or permissible and he hasn’t acted upon either, he goes with the opinion that it is unlawful, for indeed that is more cautious. If they are equal in every respect, then we let him choose between them, even though we reject letting him choose in other situations, because it is a necessity and in a rare circumstance.”

Al-Shaykh also said, “Then we address the muftīs with what we have mentioned. As for the layperson who has this happen to him, his ruling is to ask those two muftīs or another muftī, and we have instructed the muftī as to how he should respond.” This position that has been chosen by al-Shaykh is not strong. Rather, the most prominent position is any one of the three opinions, and they are the third, fourth, and fifth. The prominent¹⁵⁷ position is that the fifth is the most prominent of them, because he is not from those qualified to do ijtihād,¹⁵⁸ and thus he is only obligated to imitate a scholar who is qualified for that.¹⁵⁹ This is what he does by taking whichever of the two opinions he wishes, and the difference between him and what al-Shāfiʿī has stated (naṣṣ) regarding the prayer direction is that its signs are tangible,¹⁶⁰ and thus realizing the correct position is easier. Thus, there is disparity between the mujtahids therein when the signs of the fatāwā are intangible. However, there isn’t great disparity between the mujtahids,¹⁶¹ and Allah knows best.

The fifth is what al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī said, “If there is only one muftī in the locality where he is then it is incumbent upon him to take his fatwā.” Abū Muẓaffar al-Samʿānī, Allah have mercy on him, said, “If the questioner hears the answer of the muftī he is not bound to act upon it unless he adheres to him.”¹⁶² He also said, “It is permissible to say that he is bound by it if he has started acting upon it, and it has been said that he is bound by it if he feels that it is sound.” Al-Samʿānī said, “This is the foremost of the opinions.” Al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr said, “I haven’t found this for anyone else.” After that, he related from one of the scholars of uṣūl that if the muftī gives him a fatwā regarding something that is differed over, then he can choose between accepting it or going to someone else.

Then he gave his own chosen position, which is that the person must employ personal reasoning with regards to the individual muftīs, and he is obligated to take the fatwā of the one he chooses based on his personal reasoning. Al-Shaykh said, “That which the principles require is that we set this forth in detail and thus say: If the muftī gives him a fatwā then we must investigate. If there is no other muftī then he must take his fatwā, and that does not depend on adhering to him, having started to act upon it or anything else. It also doesn’t depend on him feeling that it is sound. If he finds another muftī, if it is made clear that the one who gave him a fatwā is more knowledgeable and more trustworthy then he is bound by his fatwā, based on the most correct position concerning specifying a muftī, as has been mentioned. If it isn’t made clear then he isn’t bound by his fatwā just because he gave it to him, and thus it is permissible for him to ask someone else and imitate him, and the two of them agreeing in the fatwā is not known. If he does find that they agree or a ruler (ḥākim)¹⁶³ rules by it then he is bound by it.”

The sixth is that if he asks and is given a fatwā and then the same event happens again, is he obligated to ask the question again? There are two opinions. The first is that he is obligated due to the possibility of the muftī changing his mind. The second is that he is not obligated, and this is the most correct position, because he knows the first ruling and the foundation is that the muftī will stick to his position. However, the author of al-Shāmil specified the opposite position depending on whether he is imitating a living person or decisively when he is following a report from a deceased person, because he would not be obligated in that matter; but the correct position is that such a specification is not made because the muftī is already upon the madhhab of a deceased person and within his right to change his answer according to his madhhab.

The seventh is that he himself asks, and he can send someone trustworthy whose reports are reliable to ask on his behalf. He can also rely on the muftī’s handwriting if he is informed by someone he trusts that it is his handwriting, or his handwriting is known and thus there is no doubt in the world that the answer is in his handwriting.

The eighth is that the questioner should have etiquette with the muftī, and show him deference when addressing, answering him and so forth. He should not point in his face or say to him, “What have you memorized regarding such-and-such?,” or “What is the madhhab of your imam?,” or “al-Shāfiʿī said regarding such-and-such”; and he should not say when he answers his question, “That’s also my opinion,” or “such-and-such occurred to me.” He should also not say, “So-and-so gave me a fatwā,” or “Someone else gave a fatwā stating such-and-such”; nor should he say, “If your answer agrees with the one who wrote then write; if not, then don’t write.” He should not ask him while he is standing, in a state of alertness, if he is perturbed or anxious, or any other state that preoccupies the heart. He should begin with the oldest and most knowledgeable of the muftīs and present the questions in order of importance if he wants to gather the answers on one piece of paper. If he wants to have each answer on a separate piece of paper then he begins with whomever he wants. The piece of paper should be big enough for the muftī to answer clearly without having to make it brief, and thus detrimental to the questioner.

He should not omit a supplication for the one whom he is asking. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “If he asking for a fatwā from just one person he should say, ‘What is your position, and Allah have mercy on you,’ or ‘…Allah be pleased with you,’ or ‘…Allah grant you enabling success, show you the right way and be pleased with your parents.’ It is not good to say, ‘Allah have mercy on us and you.’ If he is asking for a fatwā from a group he should say, ‘What do you say, Allah be pleased with you,’¹⁶⁴ or ‘What do the jurists say, Allah the Exalted show them the right way,’ He should present the piece of paper to the muftī spread out and he should take it spread out. He should not hold it up to his face nor give it rolled up.”

The ninth is that the one writing on the piece of paper should be someone who is good at formulating questions and giving them purpose, as well as possessing clear handwriting and wording and the ability to protect both of them¹⁶⁵ from being subject to misreading. Al-Ṣaymarī said, “One should be keen to see that the writer is from the people of knowledge. ”One of the leading jurists would not give a fatwā unless it was on a piece of paper that was written by a man who he himself was from the people of knowledge in his locality. The layperson should not demand that the muftī provide evidence. He should not say, ‘Why have you said this?’ If he wants to put himself at ease by hearing the proof then he should ask for it in another gathering, or in the same gathering but after accepting the fatwā as it is.” Al-Samʿānī said, “One is not prohibited from asking for evidence, and it is incumbent upon the muftī to mention the evidence if the matter is decisive and settled.”¹⁶⁶ It is not incumbent upon him if the matter is not decisive and settled, because this would require him to discuss his ijtihād and this would be difficult for the layperson to understand.

The tenth is that if the person who experienced the event does not find a muftī or anyone else to convey the ruling of his event to him, not in his locality nor anywhere else, al-Shaykh has said, “This is the issue of an interval of time between Revealed Laws,¹⁶⁷ and its ruling is the ruling of whatever existed before the appearance of the Revealed Law.” The correct position regarding all of this is that legal responsibility is lifted from the slave and no ruling is established regarding him: no obligation, no prohibition and no other legal ruling. Thus, the owner of the piece of paper is not taken to task for anything that he did therein, and Allah knows best.

Mahdi Lock currently teaches English and studies fiqh with orthodox scholars in Jeddah and Damascus; email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The author wishes to acknowledge the valuable help rendered in the preparation of this translation by his teacher, al-Ḥajj Abū Jaʿfar al-Ḥanbalī.

1. The eponymous school of Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (150–204 AH), the student of Imams Mālik and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī and one of the teachers of Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. Apart from being the codifier of one of the four madhhabs of Muslim orthodoxy, he is also regarded as the renewer of the third century and was the first scholar to write down the science of uṣūl al-fiqh, as demonstrated in his famous work al-Risāla, a recent translation and study of which is Joseph E. Lowry, Early Islamic Legal Theory: The Risāla of Muḥammad Ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (Leiden: Brill, 2007); cf. al-Shāfiʿī, The Epistle on Legal Theory, ed. and trans. Joseph E. Lowry (New York: New York University Press, 2013).

2. Kitāb al-Majmūʿ sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab, ed. Muḥammad Najīb al-Muṭīʿī, 23 vols. (Jeddah: Maktabat al-Irshād, 1970).

3. Al-Nawawī, Adab al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim, ed. Abū Ḥudhayfa Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad (Cairo: Maktabat al-Ṣaḥāba, 1408/1987), 67.

4. Minhāj al-ṭālibīn wa ʿumdat al-muftīn (Jeddah: Dār al-Minhāj, 1432/2011).

5. Born in Egypt in 909/1404 and died in Makkah in 974/1567, he is the author of Tuḥfat al-muḥtāj bi-sharḥ al-Minhāj, a commentary of Imam al-Nawawī’s Minhāj al-ṭālibīn. He is also the author al-Manhaj al- qawīm, which is a commentary of Bā Faḍl al-Ḥadramī’s al-Muqaddimat al-Ḥadramiyya. Along with Imam Shams al-Dīn al-Ramlī, he is the foremost authority of the entire later Shāfiʿī school, especially for the Shāfiʿīs of the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia.

6. Born in Cairo in 919 AH and died there in 1004, he was the faqīh of the abodes of Egypt in his age and the ultimate reference (marjaʿ) for fatwā for the people of that region. He is known as al-Shāfiʿī al-ṣaghīr (“the little Shāfiʿī”), and is one of the foremost authorities of the entire later Shāfiʿī school, especially in Egypt and the Levant. His commentary of Imam al-Nawawī’s Minhāj is called Nihāyat al-muḥtāj ilā sharḥ al-Minhāj.

7. Born in Cairo and died there in 977/1570, he is the author of Mughnī al-muḥtāj ilā maʿrifa maʿānī alfāẓ al-Minhāj, which is his commentary on Imam al-Nawawī’s Minhāj. He also has a commentary on the Matn al-Qāḍī Abī Shujāʿ called al-Iqnāʿ fī ḥall alfāẓ Abī Shujāʿ. His works are especially popular in South-east Asia.

8. al-Majmūʿ 1:36-96.

9. A jurisconsult who is qualified to give or issue legal opinions.

10. One who pose a question or problem to a muftī for his formal legal response or answer to it.

11. Imam Muḥammad Ibn Sīrīn was born in 33 AH, in the era of the caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, in Baṣra. He is thus considered a Follower (ṭābiʿī) and was a great scholar of fiqh, hadith, and tafsīr. He is most significantly recognized as the greatest scholar of dream interpretation, as demonstrated by his widely-popular book Tafsīr al- aḥlām. He died in Baṣra in 110 AH.

12. Imam Mālik ibn Anas was born in Madīna in 93 AH and died there in 179. He is known as the Imam of Madīna and the Imam of Dār al-Hijra, and is the codifier of one of the four madhhabs of Muslim orthodoxy. He is also the first scholar to write down a book of hadith along with their fiqh rulings, as demonstrated in al-Muwaṭṭāʾ.

13. Adab al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim, 46.

14. al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, one of the greatest Shāfiʿī scholars of fiqh and hadith, was born in 577 AH. He travelled extensively for the sake of knowledge, including to Mosul, Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Damascus, where he was the first person to teach at Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyya. He died in the year 643.

15. Adab al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim, 79.

16. For Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas’s critique of these superficial Islamization attempts, which simply boil down to vacuous legalism or even ḥiyal-ism, see his Islam and Secularism (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, Practice of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas: An Exposition of the Original 993); and Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud, The Educational Philosophy Practice of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas: An Exposition of the Original and The third is that it is unlawful to be negligent in giving fatwā, and if someone is known for doing so then it is unlawful to seek a fatwā from him. Being negligent includes not proceeding with caution, and hastening to give the fatwā before giving it its full right in terms of investigation and reflection. If he already knows the answer because he has been asked about it before, then there is no harm in answering promptly, and this is how what has been related regarding previous scholars answering promptly should be understood. It is also from negligence for corrupt objectives to induce him to pursue unlawful stratagems, or disliked ones, Concept of Islamization (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1998).

17. An approach that El-Gamal has aptly termed “rent-seeking shariʿ arbitrage”; see Mahmoud A. El-Gamal, Islamic Finance: Law, Economics, and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 162 ff; El-Gamal, “Mutuality as an Antidote to Rent-Seeking Shariʿa-Arbitrage in Islamic Finance,” Thunderbird International Business Review 49, no. 2 (2007):187-202.

18. Adab al-ʿālim wal-mutaʿallim, 79.

19. Dīwān al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī, ed. Naʿīm Zarzūr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1984), 83.

20. That is, the Shāfiʿīs.

21. Imam al-Ṣaymarī, a resident of Baṣra, is regarded as a memorizer of the Shāfiʿī madhhab and he was the teacher of Imam al-Māwardī, described below. The date of his death is not specified, as Imam Ibn Ṣalāḥ states that he died after the year 386 AH, while Imam al-Dhahabī states that he was alive after the year 405.

22. Imam Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī, born in Baṣra in 364 AH, was the chief of the judiciary under the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Qāʾim bi-Amrillāh and also a memorizer of the Shāfiʿī madhhab. He published major works in fiqh, tafsīr, and uṣūl al-fiqh. His most famous work is al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya, which deals with the topic of governance in the Revealed Law. He died in Baghdad in the year 450.

23. That is, al-Ḥāwī al-kabīr, which is Imam al-Māwardī’s book on Shāfiʿī fiqh and comprises approximately twenty volumes.

24. al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, universally acknowledged as the Ḥāfiẓ of the East, born in Baghdad in 392 AH, studied with the major authorities and hadith specialists of his time, and was the first to have systematically addressed the topics of taqlīd and ijtihād and their historical development. He is also one of the greatest historians who ever lived, as demonstrated by his monumental Tārīkh Baghdād. He died in Baghdad in 463.

25. Ibn al-Munkadir (54-130 AH) is a hadith narrator from the people of Madina.He met some of the Companions and narrated approximately two hundred hadiths.

26. That is, the generations after the first three.

27. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā (d. 83 AH), is a Follower and hadith narrator from Madina who settled in Kufa.

28. That is, he never says, “I don’t know.”

29. Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, who died in 148 AH in Madina, is a scholar of fiqh and hadith who narrated from several Companions. He taught in the Prophet’s Masjid, Allah bless him and grant him peace, and also issued fatwās there.

30. Imam Saḥnūn ibn Saʿīd al-Tanūkhī, one of the most famous Mālikī scholars, was born in the city of Kairouan in 160 AH and studied with its greatest scholars before travelling to seek knowledge in Egypt, the Levant, and the Ḥijāz. He returned to Kairouan in 191 and worked towards spreading the Mālikī madhhab in Africa and Andalusia, his most significant work on the subject being al-Mudawwana al-kubrā, which is a collection of questions and answers according to the fiqh of that school. He died in Kairouan in the year 240.

31. Imam Abū Bakr al-Athram, who died in 287 AH in Baghdad, is a Ḥanbalī scholar of hadith and direct student of Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who appointed him one of his successors in both fiqh and hadith. He memorized over 700,000 hadiths.

32. Known as the muḥaddith (hadith scholar) of Antioch, al-Haytham ibn Jamīl Abū Sahl al-Baghdādī was a great memorizer who narrated hadiths from the likes of Imam Mālik and Imam Layth and was narrated from by the likes of Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. He died in the year 213 AH.

33. That is, they get their questions answered.

34. Narrated by the Imams al-Bukhārī and Muslim.

35. That is, the caliph.

36. That is, al-Khaṭīb.

37. Rabīʿa ibn Farrūkh al-Taymi al-Madanī Abū Sulaymān is a great memorizer of hadith and a faqīh who was born in the first century AH. He taught in the Prophet’s Mosque, Allah bless him and grant him peace, and was known as the faqīh of Madina.

38. Also meaning: to act independently.

39. That is, the muftī.

40. That is, nothing is known about the inward justice of the guardian and witnesses.

41. A byword for the people of cults and innovation.

42. That is, the first Khawārij, whose main issue was takfīr (declaring Muslims to be disbelievers) and were known to be truthful, not the later manifestations of the cult that can be read about in al-Ghunyā li Ṭālib Ṭarīq al-Ḥaqq by Imam ʿAbdul Qādir al-Jilānī, for example.

43. That is, the Ismāʿīlīs and the Bāṭinites.

44. That is, the Twelver Shīʿa.

45. That is, their positions in fiqh.

46. That is, al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ.

47. Al-Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Asfarāyanī is a Shāfiʿī scholar who was the undisputed shaykh of his time. He was born in 344 AH and moved to Baghdad in 364 for the sake of knowledge, where he became a much sought-after teacher. His fiqh class was attended by approximately three hundred aspiring jurists. He died in 406 AH.

48. Ibn al-Mundhir is a Ḥanbalī judge who died in 360 AH, and was called the “Collector of Consensus Positions” (Jāmiʿ al-ijmāʿāt) because of his book Kitāb al-Ijmāʿ.

49. That is, a muftī can’t give a fatwā against what has been established in the Revealed Law, and neither can he give a fatwā regarding new issues. Rather, his job is to refer to the jurists (fuqahāʾ) from amongst his contemporaries or his forbearers.

50. That is, al-Qāḍī al-Shurayḥ, a famous judge in the time of Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Allah be pleased with both of them.

51. That is, in addition to the above footnote, the Qāḍī is stating that his rank is higher and his ruling is binding, as opposed to the fatwā of a muftī.

52. That is, that extent of knowledge.

53. Commonly spelled as al-Asfarāyanī, al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāq is a Shāfiʿī scholar who lived in Iraq and Esfarayen, his hometown, before being invited by the people of Nishapur to settle there. He accepted the invitation and a magnificent school was built for him, the likes of which had never been seen in Nishapur. He remained there until his death in 418 AH, after which he was transported to his hometown and buried there.

54. Al-Ustādh Abū Manṣūr ʿAbdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī was a student of al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāq, and others, in Nishapur until he became a proficient scholar in his own right and teacher of seventeen sciences of the Revealed Law. Al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāq appointed him as his successor and he held the position until moving to Esfarayen, where the people were immensely impressed by him. He died there in the year 429 AH and was buried next to his teacher.

55. Ibn Barhān is Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Wakīl (b. 479 AH), a follower of the Ḥanbalī madhhab who became a Shāfiʿī scholar of fiqh and uṣūl al-fiqh, studying with Imam al-Ghazālī and eventually teaching at the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad. He died in Baghdad in the year 520.

56. That is, he must know the abovementioned sciences.

57. Ibn Ṣabāgh (400-477 AH) is the famous Shāfiʿī scholar and faqīh Abū Naṣr al-Baghdādī, the author of al-Shāmil. He started teaching in the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad as soon as it was opened in 459 and also taught in the same mosque that Imam al-Shāfiʿī had taught in. His level of knowledge in fiqh was such that in the madhhab he was preferred over Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī.

58. That is, the four madhhabs.

59. That is, Abū ʿAmr.

60. Imam Abū ʿAlī al-Sinjī was a great memorizer of hadith and regarded as the most knowledgeable person in that science in the whole of Khorasan. He died in the year 315 AH.

61. Imam Abū Ibrāhīm Ismāʿīl ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ismāʿīl al-Muzanī al-Maṣrī is one of the greatest companions of Imam al-Shāfiʿī, such that the Imam said that if al-Muzanī were to debate Satan he would beat him. He wrote several books in fiqh, including al-Mukhtaṣar. He was born in 175 AH and died in Cairo in the year 264. He was prayed over by another of Imam al-Shāfiʿī’s companions, al-Rabīʿ, and buried in the Qarāfa cemetery near to the Imam himself.

62. That is, a scholar of the foundations of fiqh.

63. That is, that which is either a position of al-Shāfiʿī, a text from him, or an opinion of one of the scholars of the madhhab: see al-Nawawī, Minhāj al-ṭālibīn, 645.

64. That is, the imam of his madhhab.

65. That is, the Book and the Sunna.

66. That is, imam of the madhhab.

67. That is, of the madhhab.

68. Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Mālik, Imam al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī was the imam of imams in his age, the Shāfiʿī scholar of his time in fiqh and uṣūl. Born in Juwayn (in present-day Afghanistan) in 419 AH, he studied with his father before moving to Nishapur and then Baghdad, followed by four years of teaching in Makka and then in Madina, earning the title Imām al-Ḥaramayn (“Imam of the Two Sanctuaries,” i.e., Makka and Madina). He eventually returned to Persia to teach at the Niẓāmiyya in Nishapur. In addition to the great books he has left behind, such as al-Waraqāt in uṣul al-fiqh, he is also famously known as the teacher of the Proof of Islam and the Muslims, Imam Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. When died in Nishapur in 478 AH he had approximately four hundred students, who broke their pens and inkwells out of grief at the news of his death.

69. That is, Ghiyāth al-umam fī-iltiyāth al-ẓulm.

70. Shaykh al-Islām Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī is the author of al-Muhadhdhab, the text upon which Imam al-Nawawī’s Majmūʿ is a commentary. He was the first person to teach at the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad, receiving students from east and west, and was asked for fatwā from far and wide. He was born in Firuzābād in the year 393 AH and died in Baghdad in 475.

71. Shaykh Wahba al-Zuḥaylī explains extraction (takhrīj) as: “al-Shāfiʿī answers with two different rulings regarding two situations that resemble each other, and it is not clear why the two rulings should be different. Thus, the companions transfer al-Shāfiʿī’s answer in one situation to the other, and thus each situation comes to have two positions; one is called manṣūṣ and the other mukharraj. The manṣūṣ in one issue is the mukharraj in the other, and the manṣūṣ in the other is the mukharraj in the former. Thus, it is said, ‘There are two positions based on transferring (naql) and extraction,’ and the most correct position is that the extracted position is not attributed to al-Shāfiʿī, because maybe he reconsidered it and mentioned a difference.” al-Fiqh al-Shāfiʿī al-muyassar (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1429/2008), 1:74.

72. That is, an analogy that is easy to recognize.

73. That is, the class in the first category, and the other four classes or states in the second category.

74. That is, uṣūl al-fiqh, or foundations of jurisprudence.

75. That is, a muftī.

76. Imam Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Ḥalīmī was the shaykh of the Shāfiʿīs in Transoxiana. He was born in Bukhārā, although some say Jurjān, in the year 338 AH and died in 403.

77. This is the father of Imam al-Ḥaramayn. He was an imam in tafsīr, fiqh, and literature and wrote a large tafsīr in which he commented on each verse from the standpoint of ten sciences from the Revealed Law. He died in Nishapur in 438 AH.

78. The ‘Judge of Judges,’ ʿAbdul Wāḥid ibn Ismāʿīl al-Rūyānī, was regarded as the judge (qāḍī) of the Shāfiʿīs in his age. He was born in 415 AH in what is now northern Iran and travelled to Bukhārā, Amol, Nishapur and other places for the sake of knowledge. He reached such a level of proficiency in the madhhab that he used to say, “If all the books of al- Shāfiʿī were burnt I would be able to recover them from my memory,” and he was indeed called the Shāfiʿī of his time. He was martyred at the hands of members of the Ismāʿilī cult in the central mosque of Amol on Friday, the 11th of Muḥarram, 501/502 AH.

79. Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī is a Shāfiʿī scholar from Khorasan, known as the shaykh of the people of Khorasan. He worked as a locksmith in the early part of his life (hence the name Qaffāl) before taking up the study of fiqh at the age of thirty and going on to become the unique person of his age in fiqh and memorization. He died in the year 417 AH at the age of ninety.

80. In other words, a layperson is a scholar of what he knows.

81. That is, based in the locality but not available at the moment.

82. Cf. the narration in which he consulted one hundred and twenty of the Helpers (anṣār).

83. That is, a hypothetical question.

84. Imam Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was the imam of his age in the rational sciences and one of the imams of the Revealed Law. He was born in Rayy, Persia in 544 AH. Arguably his most famous work is his multivolume tafsīr, entitled Mafātiḥ al-ghayb. He wrote several other brilliant works and was a fierce preacher again innovation and the cults, namely the Muʿtazila, the Shīʿa, and the anthropomorphists. He died in Herat in present-day Afghanistan in 606.

85. That is, replace what was destroyed if it is fungible (e.g., dates) and replace its value if otherwise.

86. That is, the questioner is to blame because he asked someone who wasn’t qualified.

87. That is, their false or deceptive statements.

88. That is, the guilty parties.

89. For example, to offer to sell something which one wrongfully seized, and thus one would be selling that which isn’t one’s property.

90. For example, concealing infertility or chronic health issues until after the contract has been finalized.

91. Attributed to the third century Shāfiʿī scholar Ibn Surayj, which is a situation in which a man says to his wife, “If I divorce you, then you are divorced prior to that three times.” Therefore, if he divorces her, is it regarded as a conditional tripartite divorce or does it count as a divorce at all? Ibn Surayj’s opinion was that no divorce had taken place, because it is an impossible situation, as a man cannot divorce a woman after the third time, which is a final, irrevocable divorce. As Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya explains, “Thus, its occurrence leads to its non-occurrence, and that which its existence leads to its non-existence never existed, and this is the chosen position of Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn Surayj, and a group of Shāfiʿīs agreed with him, and it was rejected by the majority of jurists from the Mālikīs, Ḥanafīs, Ḥanbalīs, and most of the Shāfiʿīs.” Please see Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn ʿan Rabb al-ʿālamīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1411/1991), 3:197.

92. Imam Abū Ḥātim al-Qazwīnī is a Shāfiʿī scholar who descends from the Companion Anas ibn Mālik, Allah be pleased with him. He studied fiqh in Amol before moving on to Baghdad, where he attended the study circle of al-Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid. He was a memorizer of the madhhab and of differences of opinion, and he wrote several books on these subjects. He died in Amol, and according to al-Samʿānī it was in the year 440 AH, while al-Dhahabī says he died around the year 460, and Allah knows best.

93. Imam Abū Muẓaffar al-Samʿānī was a faqīh in the Shāfiʿī madhhab and also knowledgeable in hadith. He was born in 537 AH and disappeared when the Tatars entered Merv in the year 617. It was not known at the time whether he was dead and shrouded or alive and expected to return.

94. E.g., a ruler has his own means of provision, say, from the public treasury, and thus does not need to be paid directly by the individuals from among his people for the services he does for them.

95. That is, the caliph.

96. That is, al-Majmūʿ sharḥ al-Muhadhdhib, from whose introduction this text is gleaned.

97. That is, for each obligatory prayer.

98. Shaykh al-Islām al-Qāḍī Abū Ṭayyib al-Shāfiʿī al-Ṭabarī is known as the faqīh of Baghdad. Al-Shaykh Abū Isḥāq said of him, “He is our shaykh and our ustādh. I have not seen anyone more perfect in ijtihād, more intense in verification and more insightful than him.” He also said, “He died at the age of 102 and his intellect had not deteriorated in the least and his understanding had not changed. He continued to issue fatwā and give judgments.” He was born in Amol in 348 AH and died in Baghdad in the year 450.

99. This is al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥāmid al-Marwarūdhī, who is mentioned below. Al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥāmid took from Abū Isḥāq al-Marwazī and also lived in Basra and studied with its fuqahāʾ. He was a peerless imam and wrote a commentary on Imam al-Muzanī’s Mukhtaṣar as well as his own book in Shāfiʿī fiqh called al-Jāmiʿ. He also wrote in the science of uṣūl al-fiqh. He died in the year 362 AH.

100. Q Āl ʿImrān 3:106; that is, Allah began by mentioning the faces that are whitened but when explaining He began with the faces that are blackened.

101. That is, sometimes a questioner appears to ask several questions at once but they are actually branch questions that stem from one fundamental question.

102. The full version of the hadith can be found in the Musnad of Imam al-Shāfiʿī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, n.d.), 7, in which the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, on the authority of Abū Hurayra, Allah be pleased with him, is asked by a sailor about performing wuḍūʾ with seawater. He didn’t ask about seafood but the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, mentioned it because it was related to something that the questioner needed.

103. This is Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, one of the two companions of Imam Abū Ḥanīfah, the other being al-Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf. He is also one of the teachers of Imam al-Shāfiʿī. He died in the year 189 AH.

104. That is, the words bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm.

105. Makḥūl al-Hudhalī Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Shāmī is a Follower who died in the year 112 AH. He was a memorizer, faqīh, and hadith scholar who was called the scholar of the people of the Levant, and this was at a time when al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was the scholar of Basra, Saʿīd ibn Musayyib was the scholar of Madina and al-Shaʿbī was the scholar of Kufa.

106. The rest of the supplication is: “and make my task easy for me. Loosen the knot in my tongue so that they will understand my words.”

107. That is, cut off from blessings. This hadith has been related by Abū Dāwūd and others.

108. For example, Imam al-Nawawī is called such because he hails from the town of Nawā, which is in modern-day Syria.

109. That is, he mentions the madhhab that he follows as part of his name.

110. Both of these terms, namely midād and ḥibr, refer to ink, one being longer-lasting than the other.

111. Abū Jaʿfar al-Naḥḥās is an Egyptian grammarian who was born in Fustāt, where he studied with the local scholars before moving to Baghdad to further his studies. He later returned to Fustāt to teach and became one of the leading grammarians in the land. He died there in the year 338 AH.

112. Usually translated as ‘atheists’ or ‘heretics’, but the precise meaning is those who believe that the world is eternal. Please see Muʿjam al-wasīṭ (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1998), s.v. z-n-d-q.

113. The Mother of the Believers, Umm Ḥabība Ramla bint Abī Sufyān, Allah be pleased with her, was the wife of the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, the daughter of Abū Sufyān and the sister of Muʿāwiyah. She died in the year 44 AH and is buried in al-Baqīʿ cemetery in Madina.

114. Umm Ḥabība, Allah be pleased with her, said, “O Allah, grant a long life to my husband, the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, to my father, Abū Sufyān, and to my brother, Muʿāwiya.” The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “You have asked Allah, Mighty and Majestic, regarding lifespans that have been determined, days that have been numbered, and provisions that have been distributed, and He will never hasten anything before its time or defer it beyond its time. If you had asked Allah to protect you from any punishment in the Fire or from any punishment in the grave that would have been better.” Saḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 16:174.

115. That is, the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace.

116. See Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Beltsville, Maryland: Amana Publications, 1999), section 8.0, 595-598.

117. That is, kufr.

118. See the thirty-third hadith in al-Arbaʿīn al-Nawawiyya.

119. That is, because travelling would provide them both with an excuse not to fast.

120. That is, there is no means for him to redeem himself before Allah.

121. The two hadiths being quoted are weak but can be used for such a purpose.

122. That is, a situation in which the number of shares are increased while the amount of each share is decreased. See al-Raḥbiyya fī ʿilm al-farāʾiḍ bi-sharḥ Sabṭ al-Mardīnī wa ḥāshiyat al-ʿAllāma al-Baqrī (Damascus: Dār al-Muṣtafā, 1429/2008), 242-246, for further details.

123. Called such because Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Allah be pleased with him, discussed it on the pulpit (minbar).

124. This issue is discussed under the chapter on ḥajb, which is either ḥajb nuqsān or ḥajb ḥirmān. The former refers to when an inheritor receives less because of someone else, such as a husband receiving a quarter instead of a half because of the existence of a son. The latter refers to when an inheritor receives nothing because of someone else, such as a grandson receiving nothing because of the existence of a son. See al-Raḥbiyya, 83-89, for further details.

125. See Q al-Nisāʾ 4:11.

126. That is, there is little room for ijtihād in inheritance because it is mostly in the Qurʾān, namely Q al-Nisāʾ 4:11-12, as well as verse 176. Thus, a muftī would especially hate to get something wrong.

127. This refers to a situation in which a person dies, and before his inheritance has been divided one of his inheritors also dies, and thus the division of the first person’s inheritance is affected. Cf. al-Raḥbiyya, 133-139.

128. In this case, an unqualified person giving fatwā.

129. That is, his own fatwā will replace the other fatwā.

130. For example, someone might be appointed muftī over a jurisdiction due to family connections and the like, and not necessarily because they are qualified.

131. That is, that he is not a qualified muftī.

132. That is, of the paper.

133. That is, the other fatwā has legitimate proofs, etc.

134. Found in the collections of Ibn Ḥibbān, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Tirmidhī.

135. According to the Revealed Law, this means the return of a woman who is in her waiting period from an unfinalized, non-threefold divorce to the state of marriage; see Keller, Reliance, 564-565, for further details.

136. That is, mafhūm al-muwāfaqa and mafhūm al-mukhālafa. The former refers to a situation in which the understanding can be taken further in the same direction. For example, in Q al-Isrāʾ 17:23, Allah commands the believers not to say uff to their parents out of irritation. If this is forbidden, then obviously it is forbidden to verbally or physically assault them. The latter refers to the opposite understanding. For example, Q al-Ḥujurāt 49:6 commands the believers to carefully scrutinize any report that comes from an iniquitous person, which means that if a report comes from an upright person then scrutiny is not obligatory.

137. That is, of Allah.

138. That is, the four madhhabs of Muslim orthodoxy.

139. That is, the caliph.

140. This, for example, would mean believing and affirming that angels exist, and even though one may later discover that there is an angel made of fire and ice who glorifies Allah by saying, “Glorified be the One Who made me from fire and ice,” that would not mean that one’s faith was deficient in any way. Rather, one’s general faith was always sufficient. For further details on this angel, please see Imam al-Suyūṭī’s al-Ḥabāʾik fī akhbār al-malāʾik (Damascus: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1403/1983), 132-135.

141. That is, it is for the scholastic theologians to deal with this and not the laity.

142. Imam Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf ibn ʿAbdul Barr, a famous Mālikī hadith scholar from Andalusia, is known as the Ḥāfiẓ of the West, just as al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī is known as the Ḥāfiẓ of the East. He was born in the year 368 AH and died in the year 463.

143. This can be found in Q al-Baqara 2:238. According to the Mālikīs—e.g., Matn al-risāla by Imam Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (Casablanca: Dār al-Rashād al-Ḥadītha, 1431/2010), 24—it is the dawn (ṣubḥ) prayer; while according to the Ḥanbalīs it is the mid-afternoon (ʿaṣr) prayer—e.g., al-Rawḍ al-murbiʿ by Imām Manṣūr al-Bahūtī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿArabī, 1406/1986), 66. As for the Shāfiʿīs, Imām al-Shāfiʿī himself and others scholars in the madhhab have held it to be ṣubḥ, while Imāms al-Nawawī and al-Māwardī have held it to be ʿaṣr, and thus that would be the preferred (rājiḥ) position in the madhhab. Cf. al-Ramlī, Nihāyat al-muḥtāj 1:235; al-Shirbīnī, Mughnī al-muḥtāj 1:303; and also Imam al-Nawawī’s discussion in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī 5:108-113.

144. Found in Q al-Baqara 2:228. According to the Shāfiʿīs (al-Nawawī, Minhāj al-ṭālibīn, 445) and the Mālikīs (al-Qayrawānī, Matn al-risāla, 96) it is three periods of purity, while according to the Ḥanbalīs (al-Rawḍ al-Murbiʿ, 462) it is three menstrual cycles.

145. Found in Q al-Baqara 2:237.

146. Q al-Kahf 18:9.

147. Q al-Nisāʾ 4:53 and 124.

148. Q Fāṭir 35:13.

149. Q al-Ḥāqqa 69:36.

150. That is, Imam Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, the author of al-Muhadhdhib, of which Imam al-Nawawī’s al-Majmūʿ is a commentary.

151. al-Qāḍī Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Marwazī, the author of al-Taʿlīqa in Shāfiʿī fiqh, was regarded as the shaykh of the Shāfiʿīs in Khorasan, and he studied fiqh with al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī. He died in Marwarūdh in the year 462 AH.

152. That is, of Imam al-Shāfiʿī’s positions.

153. A colleague of Imam al-Ghazālī and student of Imam al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Tabarī was from Tabaristan and travelled to Nishapur, Bayhaq (now known as Sabzevar in present-day Iran), and Iraq for the sake of knowledge, before eventually taking up a teaching post at the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad, where he died in the year 504 AH.

154. For example, there was a Madinan school before it came to be known as the Mālikī school, there was a Baṣran school before it came to be known as the Ḥanbalī school, etc

155. This is Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ḍabī al-Baghdādi, commonly referred to al-Maḥamilī in the biographical literature of the Shāfiʿīs. He studied fiqh with the aforementioned Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid and reached such a level of proficiency that his teacher said of him, “Now he has memorized more fiqh than I have.” Al-Majmūʿ is only one of his many books. He died in the year 415 AH at the age of forty-seven.

156. That is, Ibn Ṣabbāgh.

157. That is, another opinion of Imam al-Shāfiʿī.

158. That is, personal reasoning.

159. That is, qualified to be imitated.

160. That is, the prayer direction can be indicated by the position of the sun, the stars and other physical factors.

161. That is, in issues like the prayer direction, in which there is only one correct answer.

162. That is, that muftī is the one he always goes to.

163. That is, a political ruler or a marjaʿ, who is a faqīh who holds authority in all matters, temporal and spiritual, and whom the layperson thus has to follow.

164. That is, in Arabic, the questioner should use second-person, plural pronouns.

165. That is, one’s handwriting and wording, as one should protect them from any ambiguity or obscurity.

166. For example, if someone were to ask why intoxicants are prohibited the muftī could quote Q al-Māʾida 5:90.

167. That is, the situation is similar to one in which there is no Revealed Law.

JAʿFAR IBN ʿALĪ AL-DIMASHQĪ ON COMMUNITY, MONEY, AND PRU-

DENT MANAGEMENT IN TRADING AND SPENDING: FOUR EXCERPTS

FROM HIS KITĀB AL-ISHĀRAT ILĀ MAḤĀSIN AL-TIJĀRAT

Adi Setia

Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī al-Dimashqī (circa 600/1200) is an important thinker in the history of Islamic economic thought. His ideas resonate rather well with current economic rethinking in view of the ongoing financial and economic turmoil. Here, four interesting excerpts from his Kitāb al-Ishārat ilā Maḥāsin al-Tijārat are translated with light annotations.

Keywords: Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī al-Dimashqī, Islamic economics, Kitāb al-Ishārat ilā Maḥāsin al-Tijārat, community, gold, silver, commerce, expenditure, good management.

Introduction: The Author and His Work

He is the Damascene Shaykh, father of al-Faḍl, Jaʿfar son of ʿAlī (al-Shaykh Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī al-Dimashqī), and the work for which he is known is, as he entitled it, Kitāb al-Ishārat ilā Maḥāsin al-Tijārat wa Maʿrifat Qīmat Jayyid al-Aʿrāḍ wa Radiyyihā wa Ghushūsh al-Mudallisīn fīhā, which can be rendered in English as The Book of the Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce and to Recognizing the Value of Good and Bad Merchandise and Discerning the Adulteration of Merchandise by Swindlers, or briefly as The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce.¹

The title essentially captures the content of this slim work of about seventy pages in a printed version appended by al-Sayyid Muḥammad ʿĀshūr at the end of his useful study of the work,² though, as noted by al-Bishrī al-Shūrabjī,³ it goes beyond the pragmatics of commerce to wider aspects of economic theory and even the arcane technicalities of gold and silver assaying.

Internal evidence in a manuscript copy kept in the Khedival Library (al-Maktabat al-Khidīwiyya, also known as Dār al-Kutub)⁴in Cairo indicates that the work was composed in 570/1175 or earlier, for the conclusion therein reads as follows:

The book of The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce is now completed (tamma) by the grace of Allah and His glory, and may Allah bless His prophet. And the completion of this work (al-farāgh minhu) is at the time of the mid-day (ẓuhr) prayers during the day-time of the day of Monday the sixth of the month of Ramaḍān the Magnified of the year seventy and five hundred. May Allah forgive its scribe and its owner (kātibihā wa mālikihā), amen O Lord of all the worlds, and there is neither capacity nor strength save by Allah the Great.

Al-Bishrī al-Shūrabjī notes that the words “scribe” and “owner” may refer to the author, al-Dimashqī himself, or to someone else who copied from an earlier version for his own use (in which case the scribe and owner would be the same person) or for a patron who commissioned the copy (in which case the scribe and the owner would be two different persons). R. B. Serjeant, relying on C. Brockelmann and R. Levy, is of the opinion that the work was written before 570/1175.⁵ Helmutt Ritter, in his important translation and study of the work, is of the opinion—also based on internal evidence—that it could not have been composed earlier than the third/ninth century nor later than the sixth/twelfth century.⁶

This dating of the work to 570/1175 or thereabouts would make al-Dimashqī a contemporary of the celebrated traveler and writer Ibn Jubayr (548-613/1145-1217)⁷ and the great liberator of Jerusalem, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyubī (531-589/1137-1193),⁸ who at that time was busy campaigning to expel the Crusaders from much of Syria and Palestine. Contemporaries or near contemporaries would also include the two great successors to al-Ghazālī (d.504/1111), Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 605/1209), and Muhyī al-Dīn ibn al-ʿArabī (560-638/1165-1240).

As for the author himself, not much is known about the details of his life.⁹ Internal evidence indicates that though a Damascene, he frequented the markets of Tripoli, Syria (Ṭarābulus al-Shāms), was well versed with both the theory and practice of commerce, and was familiar with Islamic and Greek philosophical thought as well as the formal fiqh of commercial transactions (al-muʿāmala). He was most probably also a successful merchant himself, finding his home in that city whose prosperity at that time so impressed Ibn Jubayr—who visited it in 580/1184—that he exclaimed, “If paradise were on earth then without a doubt Damascus is on it.”¹⁰

So all in all, he comes across to us as a well-rounded and well-meaning man of culture (adīb) and experience who was adept at invoking both traditional and rational precepts and arguments in order to convey his important message regarding both the pragmatics and ethics of successful commercial activities.

Summaries and discussions of the Ishāra have been undertaken by quite a number of scholars, among which Yassine Essid’s attempt can be considered as one of the more insightful, largely because he wisely avoids the temptation of too quickly reading al-Dimashqī as anticipating a host of modern economic thinkers such as Adam Smith or Emile Durkheim. ʿAshūr has undertaken a full-length (though not too rigorous) study of the work, and has called al-Dimashqī the “father of economics” (abū al-iqtiṣād). The German orientalist Helmutt Ritter produced an important partial translation and study. In his edition of the work, al-Bishrīal-Shurabjī has written a useful and comprehensive synopsis of its contents, the main substance of which is reproduced below from the original Arabic:¹¹

Al-Dimashqī begins his book with a discourse on wealth and its relative importance to human need. He goes on to talk about the theory and necessity of money. His treatment in his regard is comparable to the best that modern economic thought can offer. He then continues to explain the methods by which to chemically detect debasement in gold and silver. In this respect he has at his disposal the best of the methods and instruments made available by the state of knowledge attained during his time. After that he deals with the means of preserving and safeguarding merchandise physically and chemically. Merchandise here includes commodities, grains, wares and other goods. He also expounds on the average prices of goods and deals at length with the theory of price and value, and the market forces of supply and demand. He then discusses the subject of landed property and the precautions to be taken when buying real estate, after which he presents the positive characteristics to look for in many types of animals of commercial value.

He then discusses the ways and means of procuring wealth and says that ownership of wealth is achieved in two ways, by volition and through unexpected circumstances. He goes on to explain the acquisition of wealth by coercion and by work. According to him, the kinds of work involved in the acquiring of wealth are trading and pursing a craft, and that which is derived from or related to these two. He mentions too intellectual work (al-ṣināʿa al-ʿilmiyya) and the skilled, practical work of craftsmanship (al-ṣināʿa al-ʿamaliyya). He criticizes the commercial enterprise of the ruler, and discusses the merits of the manual crafts as compared to the intellectual sciences. He then discusses the economic means of wealth preservation and the precautions to be taken in expenditure, and says that iniquity destroys wealth.

He is a pioneer in the management of domestic and public expenditure. His advice to the merchants and businessmen cannot fail to inspire our admiration and due consideration. In everything that he propounds, he finds support for it in verses from the Qurʾān, traditions from the Prophet, verses of poetry, wise sayings of the sages, and precepts of the philosophers and scholars of ethics such as Socrates, Plato, al-Kindī, al-Jāḥiẓ and others, all of which clearly attest to the profound erudition and nobility of the author and his book.

....he differentiates between the different categories of merchants, and he mentions first of all the khazzān (warehousemen or wholesalers), meaning those who sell in bulk. Secondly he mentions the rakkāḍ, that is, the itinerant merchants or importers, and thirdly he mentions the mujahhiz, that is, the suppliers or exporters. He also mentions the functions of the trading agencies. In this regard he says that it is imperative for the mujahhiz (the exporter or supplier) to appoint a trustworthy agent to receive the goods at the place to which the goods is sent. The mujahhiz should not have his merchandise dispatched or conveyed to its destination except under the supervision and care of trustworthy and reliable people. The receiving agent for the merchandise would be responsible for its sale and for the purchase of replacement goods. For his services, he gets a share in the profits.

In addition, al-Dimashqī gives generous advice and counsel for the benefit of merchants and warns them to be on their guard against middlemen and swindlers. He also discusses many theoretical economic issues like the limitation or control of market prices and the issue of the median or average price. The issue of pricing demands of the merchant to be cognizant of it.

[The book] also presents to us the various arts of business transaction, weaving, warehousing or wholesaling, food provisioning, and descriptions of gemstones and their relative value. It also gives a description of various drugs and medicaments, and fabrics.

We can glean from a close, intelligent and creative reading of al-Dimashqī’s slim treatise the underlying message that good management of the self (ethics, akhlāq) is the basis for good management of the household (the original meaning of ‘economics’, or tadbīr al-manzīl), and this in turn is the basis for good management of society (politics, siyāsa)—and therefore that the material economy should be embedded in the moral economy in order to realize a true economy of the common good leading to felicity in temporal and eternal life. As Essid explains:

We see here the beginnings of an ideology of the common good in which commercial exchange satisfies the common necessity, with trade raised to the rank of an eminently social link.¹²

In this mode of thinking, the market aspects and the welfare aspects are both integral, constituent aspects of the same economy, which, in this regard can be termed the ‘market-welfare’ economy, or the Islamic Gift Economy (al-itqtiṣād al-infāqī), or an economics of “provisioning,” in which profits and surpluses are to be reinvested into serving communal well-being.

This understanding of the underlying notion of “giving” or “gifting” finds support in Michael Bonner’s careful study of early, pre-Dimashqīan economic thought in Islam as exemplified in al-Shaybānī’s important Kitāb al-Kasb. Here the corresponding notion is that of a virtuous circulative exchange between rich and poor or an economics of interdependence between rich and poor in which the surplus of the rich is “returned” (radd, rujūʿ) to the poor in order to maintain order, peace and balance in society, especially in urban society.¹³ So the “gift” economy is the “return” economy, in which the circulation of wealth is from the rich to the poor and not from the rich to the rich, so that it does not become something which circulates among the wealthy in your midst (Q 59:7).

The kind of run-away, speculative, overly money-centred economics that has been systematically destroying middle-class America for the past few years would thus be unfathomable to the Dimashqian and Shaybanian economic vision.¹⁴ As a matter of fact, al-Dimashqī devotes quite a number of pages of his treatise to warn hardworking, honest business people against the temptations of all sorts of speculative enterprises marketed by the sophisticated smooth talkers of his time,¹⁵ the kind of economic predators we now call “economic hit-men.”¹⁶ Similarly, his lucid explanation of why gold and silver have been the commonly agreed-upon measure of value and medium of exchange among all peoples since ancient times dovetails perfectly with the current call—in the face of the ongoing financial meltdown—for abandoning the overly centralized fiat, paper-money system and returning to the gold and silver system, and other forms of community-based “healthy” money and currency systems.¹⁷

In what follows I present lightly an notated translations of four excerpts from the Ishãra to illustrate some interesting aspects of Jaʿfar al-Dimashqī’s thought.¹⁸ For comparison between his thinking and that of other earlier and later economic thinkers in the Islamic intellectual tradition one may want to refer to the useful, comprehensive volume, Islamic Economics: A Short History.¹⁹

Excerpt I: On the Need for Community Life²⁰

Of all living beings, it is only man who has great multiplicity of needs (al-ḥājāt). Some of these needs are naturally essential (ḍarūriyya), such as his need for constructed dwelling (manzil mabniyy), woven clothing (thawb mansūj) and processed food (ghadhāʾ maṣnūʿ); and some are socially incidental (ʿaraḍiyya waḍʿiyya) like his need in battle (al-liqāʾ) for that with which to defend him from his enemies and with which to fight, and like his need for remedies compounded (adwiya murakkaba) from medicinal substances (ʿaqāqīr)²¹ and syrups (ashriba) when he falls sick. Each of these needs in turn depends on many various crafts (al-ṣināʿāt) until they are developed and until they are perfected, as in the case of plants (al-nabāt)²² which require tilling of the soil (an yuzraʿa) or planting (yughras), weeding (yunqā), watering (yusqā) and tending (yurabbā) until the time comes for its harvesting (yuḥṣad) or collecting (yulqaṭ).

Furthermore, the fullest benefit (tamām al-intifāʿ) from these plants after harvesting require further work, like wheat (al-qamḥ) that, after reaping (ḥiṣād), requires threshing (al-dirās), winnowing (al-dharw), sifting (gharbala), cleaning (tanqiya) and milling (ṭaḥn), and sieving (al-nakhl),²³ and kneading (al-ʿajn), and baking (al-khabz) so that it can be rendered fit to be consumed.

Also, flax (al-kattān)²⁴ after moistening (al-ball) and macerating (al-taʿṭīn), needs to be shaken (al-nafḍ),²⁵ pounded (al-daqq), combed (al-mushṭ),²⁶ spun (al-ghazl), cooked (al-ṭabkh), and then submitted to the various processes of weaving (aʿmāl al-nisāja), dyeing yellow (al-ṣafr), bleaching (al-qiṣāra) and then sewing (al-khiyāṭa) until it is rendered fit to be worn.

No single person, due to his limited lifespan, can take on the task of cultivating all the crafts (al-ṣināʿāt). Even if he has the capacity to learn many of them, he definitely will not be able to master them all completely in every respect. This is because the crafts are embedded into one another.²⁷ For example, the builder (al-bannāʾ)²⁸ is in need of the carpenter (al-najjār), and the carpenter is in need of the ironsmith (al-ḥaddād),²⁹ and the workers of iron are in need of the craft of the workers of mines (aṣhāb al-maʿādin),³⁰ and all these crafts, in turn, are in need of the builder. This is the reason why people need to found cities (al-mudun) and to congregate (al-ijtimāʾ)³¹ in them, so that they can assist one another with regard to mutually fulfilling their need for one another.³²

As for all other living beings, they have no such need to depend on one another other than for (acquiring) the power of aggression (baʿda quwwat al-sharr),³³ since they are already self-provided with natural garments (malābis ṭabīʿiyya) whether in the form of hair (shaʿr), wool (ṣūf), furs (wabar), feathers (rīsh), scales (qushūr) or shells (aṣdāf). Their food (aqwāt) is already provided for them in the form of animals or plants.³⁴ Their dwellings are likewise already provided so much so that each one of them is not in need of the other.

As for beasts and animals under the control of man (taḥta aydī al-nās),³⁵ they are confined (maḥṣūra)³⁶ and so they are in need of being fed, sheltered and taken care of, otherwise they will perish.

Excerpt II: On the Universal Convention of Bimetallic Money³⁷

So when a person requires something which is for sale or for use, he pays the value of that thing with that substance (al-jawhar)⁴¹ by which all things are priced. If such a convention was not adopted, then it would not be possible for the exchange of one thing for another to take place, as in the case of a person who has something such as olive oil (al-zayt),⁴² wheat (al-qamḥ) or other similar products, whereas his counterpart has other goods such that the need of each party for what the other possesses does not concur at the same time.⁴³

It can also happen that although the mutual need of each party for what the other possesses coincides, there may not be mutual agreement (ittifāq) on the equitable value of the amount each should give in exchange for what the other owns, such that there occurs neither excess nor deficiency (lā yazīdu wa lā yanquṣu) in what each exchanges with the other.

For example, the owner of wheat may require a riṭl⁴⁴ of olive oil, whereas the owner of cooking oil may require a two camel-loads (ḥimlay)⁴⁵ of wheat, or the wheat seller may require a large quantity of oil whereas the oil seller a small quantity of wheat,⁴⁶ in which case disagreement (al-ikhtilāf) may occur between the two parties (on an equitable way to exchange one quantity for the other).

To solve such a problem the ancients (al-awāʾil) searched for something by which to price all things. They looked into all the things in the possession of man, whether plants, animals or minerals. They excluded both plants and animals from this function⁴⁷ (rutba, of pricing) due to their being transformable (mustaḥīl)⁴⁸ and quickly perishable (yusriʿu ilayhi al-fasādu). As for the minerals, they chose from among them those metallic ores which are hard and can be melted (al-aḥjār al-dhāʾiba al-jāmida). They then excluded from these iron, copper and lead. As for iron, it was rejected due to its susceptibility to rust (al-ṣadaʾ), and copper too was rejected for the same reason. As for lead, it was rejected due to its dullness (taswīd) and its excessive softness (līn) which leads to transformation in the shapes of its form (ashkāl ṣūratihī). Likewise some people rejected copper due to its susceptibility to verdigris (al-zinjār).⁴⁹ However, some people mint (ṭabaʿa) coins out of it like dirhams (al-dirhām),⁵⁰ for they use them (copper coins) as small change (fulūsan) in their transactions.⁵¹

All people are agreed on the preferment (tafḍīl) of gold (al-dhahab) and silver (al-fiḍḍa) due to their being readily suited (surʿat al-muwātā) for casting (al-sabk), forging (al-ṭarq), combining (al-jamʿ), separating (al-tafriqa)⁵² and shaping (al-tashkīl) into any form required. Gold and silver also have a beautiful luster (ḥusnu al-rawnaq), with no unpleasant odor (al-rawāʾiḥ) or taste (al-ṭuʿūm), and they endure when buried. They are both also receptive to being marked with marks (al-ʿalamāt) that preserve them; and the permanence of their features (thabāt al-simāt) protects them from debasement (al-ghashsh) and counterfeiting (al-tadlīs).⁵³

Therefore the ancients minted coins from gold and silver, and by these coins they priced all things. They saw that gold was greater in value (ajallu qadran) with respect to its beautiful luster, the compactness of its parts (talazzuz al-ajzāʾ), its durability when buried for a long period of time, and its conduciveness to repeated castings in fire.

They then determined each piece of gold as being equivalent to several pieces of silver, and they made both the price (thamanan) for all other things. Thus they came to an accord on this arrangement (iṣṭalaḥū ʿalā dhālika)⁵⁴ in order that people might purchase their needs at the time they wanted them, and so that whosoever obtained these two metals (al-jawharān)⁵⁵ it would be as if all kinds of goods were brought together in his presence whenever he desired. Therefore the need in livelihood for inarticulate wealth⁵⁶ became imperative. Some men of letters (al-udabāʾ)⁵⁷ have said:

al-ʿaynu li al-ʿayni qurratun wa li al-ẓahri quwwatun wa man malaka al-ṣafrāʾa ibyaḍḍa wajhuhū wa ikhḍarra ʿayshahū

Gold is a delight⁵⁸ to the eyes, and a support⁵⁹ for the spine; and whosoever owns the yellow thing luminous becomes his countenance and verdant the pasture⁶⁰ of his life.

Excerpt III: On Prudence in Trading⁶¹

All things bought or sold are either measured (mukayyal), weighed (mawzūn), cubited (madhrūʿ),⁶² quantified by time (muqaddar bi al-zamān)⁶³ or quantified by number (muqaddar bi al-ʿadad). And so the trader needs to detect the dishonest practices of measurers (al-kayyālīn), weighers (al-wazzānīn), land surveyors (al-massāḥ) and enumerators (al-ʿaddādīn).⁶⁴

He should also be able to know how to measure hourly as well as average time (al-sāʿāt al-zamāniyya wa al-muʿtadila), and how to extract one time from another time so that he does not fall into the danger of following the advice of the untrustworthy (ghayr al-maʾmūn).

One should not trust the words of the broker or middleman, and neither should he accept his advice, because the profession of the middleman is based on lying, even if he has previously proven to be most truthful and helpful in your dealings with him. The agent (al-dallāl) sometimes might describe a merchandise to be good and abundant and impress even the experts with his talk, while at another time he might say that it is scarce and unavailable in the land, and sell things he does not have in his hands. And yet another time he might claim that some merchandise has increased in price and become expensive, and at another time he might claim that there is a high demand for it.

Sometimes he arranges for people to come to him as customers (bi ḥaḍrat al-zabūn) who request for the merchandise and they pay him a down payment (al-ʿurbūn) to commit him (yuqayyidūnahū). Don’t you see that the agents (al-wukalāʾ) follow the market (ḥalaq al-bayʿ) and take note of merchants who have excess merchandise and then they spread rumors to people and traders that it is already sold, and that is their ruse on those buyers who desire (al-rāghibin) the merchandise? On this manner of doing business the agents are unscrupulous, even if they are considered in the public eye to be among those who do good and possess integrity. This is their custom because the adept among them take pride in being able to sell at marked-up prices (bayʿ bi al-ziyāda), and they like to be publicly known for this skill since it is an aspect of their livelihood.

Know that those who believe without proof is a blind follower (muqallid), and blind following is detested by all intelligent people. Those who accept the preposterous (al-muḥāl) are tricked (al-makhdūʿ), and those who allow themselves to be cheated are not among the wise (ḥakīm). The Arabs say:

lā raʾya li al-kadhūb

No opinion for the liar.

This is because the believer in the preposterous (al-muṣaddiq li al-muḥāl) builds the management of his affairs merely upon what is said to him by other people, and therefore his judgment is mistaken since it is founded on falsehood.

One should also be prudent with regard to the claims of most of the merchants. Some of them, when they want to buy some goods which they know would sell briskly (nafāq) at the town they are journeying to, they spread the news that the goods are not in demand (bāʾira) and that their prices are falling and that the goods are not in demand by the people (waqaʿa al-ghināʾ ʿanhā). And then it might be that a letter with an unknown signature arrives to him confirming the news of the unsalable merchandise. He will claim that the letter reached him from a close associate or friend.

He then appoints someone who will buy the merchandise for him, and it might be that he has already come to a prior arrangement with his appointee regarding the matter in the following manner in which he says to him, “When I write to you and I say, ‘Allāh! Allāh!, be careful lest you buy the merchandise of so-and-so, since it is unsalable, and so do not buy it,’ whereupon you must buy it. And when I mention to you that, ‘Its price with us is one dinar,’ then do know that the real price is two dinars. This is done because it could be that this letter falls into the hand of a person other than you before it reaches you, and then he will not believe it nor accept it, in which case you will miss an opportunity.”

There may be among some of the merchants one who will want to sell some merchandise which he has that costs, say, ten dinars, while there is another merchant having similar merchandise. Then the former merchant will make mention among the traders that he was paid eleven dinars for that merchandise. That other merchant will then be interested to ask the former for the merchandise but he will desist, for he will covet an increase in price (for that merchandise), and so, that other merchant too will desist from selling (what he has of similar merchandise) when he hears that.⁶⁵

Meanwhile the person who has paid the former merchant ten dinars (for the merchandise) will have departed and then contracted a sale of the merchandise and accumulated its proceeds. He⁶⁶ may then ask the (other) buyers to say that they have bought from that person at a higher price. If afterwards should the former merchant be censured by the people who were misinformed by his talk, he will say, “I was not eager to sell it but necessity led me to sell it,” and he will excuse himself through many contrived excuses.⁶⁷

When purchasing heavy merchandise the trader will require the help of honest and reliable people to help him during the purchase (al-sharāʾ), packaging (al-ḥazm) and transportation (al-ḥaml) of the goods, and also during inspection (al-taqlīb) and selling (al-bayʿ) of the goods. For if the trader is alone, he will be too mentally, emotionally and physically taxed and hence he will be easy prey to the thieves from among the camel drivers (al-jammālūn), porters (al-ḥammālūn), seamen (al-baḥriyya), and other workers whose assistance he needs during transportation (al-tanaqqul), and who will be tempted to steal from him. Therefore it is best for the lone trader that he engages in light commerce and merchandise (al-khafīf) that is easy for him to manage and look after alone.

The foundation of trade in buying and selling is to buy from the abstemious (zāhid)⁶⁸ or from someone who is in need of money, and selling to the desirous (rāghib) or to one who needs to buy. This is among the best means to optimize goodness in the product sold and to optimize profits (tawaffur al-ribḥ).⁶⁹ He also has to be skeptical (sūʾal-ẓann) just as he has to be confident (ḥusn al-ẓann), for when he is skeptical he will preserve his capital, and when he is confident, he will be cautious. And indeed that which is to be feared of is greater in degree than that which is to be hoped for.

It should be known that excessive obsession (ifrāṭ al-ḥirṣ) with seeking advantage (ṭalab al-fāʾida) can lead to transgression (al-ḥurmān), and intense striving (shiddat al-ijtihād) to earn profit may lead to loss (al-khusrān). The proof of this fact is that there is a great difference between the purchase of the obsessively covetous and the purchase of one who is detached from his desires and emotions, and this difference is reflected in their respective business performance. The obsessively covetous is blind to all guidelines (marāshid) and lacks wisdom, inclines towards his desires and deviates from rational judgment. And the best affairs consist in swift success which brings forth the best results.

When the merchant sees that there is goodness, blessing and profit in a certain venture he should continue in that venture as long as there is no transgression, or excess or hidden danger in continuing it, for it could be that his complete success is in it. It is reported that the Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be on him, was approached one day by a man who said that his livelihood was in trading but he was indisposed⁷⁰ in it (muḥārif fīhā). He would buy something to trade but it would not sell, or it would be spoiled before it could be sold.

Whereupon the Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allāh be on him, said, “Did you make profit at all in (at least) something you bought and you managed to make a comfortable profit out of it?” The man said, “I do not recall of any venture in which I made a profit except in providing venture capital (al-qirḍ).”⁷¹ The Prophet then said, “Then you should cling fast to qirḍ.” Whereupon the man clung to that and he became wealthy and prosperous and his situation improved. The news of his success reached the Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allāh be on him, whereupon he said:

man būrika fī shayʾin fa yalzam

Whosoever is blessed with success in something should cling fast to it.⁷²

The merchant should practice magnanimity in trading because it is one of the doors to livelihood (māʿisha) and a means for obtaining sustenance (al-rizq). In this regard the merchant should believe in his heart that whenever he obtained a profit of one dinar, for instance, then one half dinar of it was due to his magnanimity, whether in the weighing (wazn), or in accepting monetary payment (naqd), or in gifting (hiba) to his intermediary (wāsiṭa), or in his price reduction (haṭīṭa); for the buyer’s mental attitude is in the mode of anticipating the merchant’s magnanimity.

If the merchant is greedy (sharihan) and says to himself, “I have forsaken in this sale a profit of one dinar. If I had been stringent I would have made a profit of one and a quarter dinar, for he had really wanted to buy. And so this time I shall decide to be fully particular about precise weighing and accepting only good quality money⁷³ in payment, and I shall not pay anything at all to a middleman or an agent.”

If such a thought comes to his mind and he acts it out, then a dissonance will occur between the heart of the merchant and the heart of the buyer, and the buyer will then depart from him. When this happens the merchant will have lost everything, and he will then wish for the customer to return to him, and thus what was to be a certain sale (al-ḥāṣil) now becomes only a wished for sale (al-maʾmūl). And “what was” (kāna) is not similar to “what will be” (laysa kāna mithla yakūnu) in regard to raising⁷⁴ the names (rafʿ al-asmāʾ) and ennobling⁷⁵ the affairs (naṣb al-akhbār), except in the science of the grammarians (al-naḥwiyyīn).⁷⁶

It is related from the Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allāh be on him, that he said:

al-simāḥu ribāḥu

Magnanimity is profit.⁷⁷

And the Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allāh be on him, also said:

raḥima Allāhu rajulan samḥan qāḍiyan wa muqtaḍiyan, bāʾiʿan wa mushtariyan

Allah shows mercy to the magnanimous man whether he be judge or judged, seller or buyer.⁷⁸

And a common proverb says:

al-duhnu yabīʿu al-harīsata

The butter sells the pastry.⁷⁹

Commerce when you compare it to all other means of livelihood is the most excellent and prosperous for people in the life of the world. The merchant is enriched (mūsaʿun ʿalayh) through commerce and is respected (lahū murūʾa). The eminence of the merchant is shown by the fact of having in his possession many thousands (of dinars), and so it matters little even if his clothes are torn and shabby.

In contrast, he who works in the sultan’s service may not be able to make ends meet at times, and yet all the while he has to burnish his image and appearance with regard to his dress and turban. He also has to ensure the smartness of his mount and its harness (ʿudda), saddle (sarj) and bridle (lijām), and his pageboy (ghulām).

If he is a soldier (jundiyyan), his food is coarse and his livelihood is harsh (ankad), and he is even seen as an oppressor by the public even if he is even-handed with them (ansafahum). He is also hated by them even when they like him and detested as a neighbor even if he is a good neighbor.

Before the Prophet said it, may peace and blessings of Allāh be on him, it was not heard from anyone, saying:

ma amlaqa tājirun ṣadūqun

The honest merchant is never destitute.⁸⁰

Yet, despite what I have said about its merits, commerce is built on hard work (al-shidda) and expenditures (al-maṣārifa). It involves inspection of lowly stuffs (al-ḥaqīr), and vexation (al-mudayyaqa) over trifles (al-ṭafīf). And if the merchant is not careful as described above, then he will soon be detested and disgraced in the public eye.

Excerpt IV: On Good Management and Prudence in Spending⁸¹

The preservation of wealth requires five factors:

Firstly, that the merchant should not spend more than what he earns, for when he does so his wealth will not last but will fade away and nothing will remain of it at all.

It is related that a man once owned a capital of five hundred dinars, and his profit each year was also five hundred dinars. His expenses each year were ikewise five hundred dinars, but in one particular year he allowed himself to overspend above his normal annual expenses by two dinars, which he paid for by extracting from his capital. Thus he was dependent on extracting from his capital so much so that after nine years he had nothing left at all, and his remaining dinars after expenses were impounded under the custody of a judge.

The explanation for this state of affairs is that in the first year he lost two dinars, in the second year four dinars, the third year eight dinars, the fourth year sixteen dinars, the fifth year thirty two dinars, the sixth year sixty four dinars, the seventh year one hundred and twenty eight dinars, the eighth year two hundred and fifty six dinars, and in the ninth year he lost five hundred and twelve dinars.

Secondly, the merchant should not spend the same amount as that which he earns, but rather he should spend a little less than what he earns so that he has some money left over in reserve as a precautionary measure against loss due untrustworthy agent or unforeseen calamities; or, if he is a merchant, as a safety deposit against sluggish sales during which he may have to sell off everything at a considerable loss; or as a precaution against disasters (jāʾiḥa) be falling hiscrops (ghalla), and the fruits of his vine yards (kurūm) and orchards (basātīn), and similar unforeseen circumstances.

I do not mean that he should take this precaution on a day to day basis, by measuring his earnings one day against his expenses the next day, but rather on a year to year basis, such as over a long period of time during which he could balance the good days against the bad days. For indeed in the seeking of livelihood (al-kasb), there are times when things are sluggish and slow-moving and times when things are picking up, and so goes the cycle (al-dawr) of livelihood. Likewise when it comes to expenditures (al-nafaqāt), sometimes they decrease and sometimes they increase according to fluctuating circumstances. You should understand this fact, and may Allāh, the Most High, give you guidance to goodness, āmīn.

Thirdly, the merchant should be cautions enough not to overstretch his resources by going into ventures which he could not possibly handle. For example, investing in a village (qarya) which he cannot develop (yaʿjizu ʿan ʿimāratihā), or in multiple property ventures (ḍiyāʿ) which he cannot possibly supervise personally and he has no assistants or partners who can represent him, or investing in livestock whose upkeep he cannot afford.

If he does that then he is like the greedy man (al-sharih) who eats more than his stomach can handle, suffers indigestion and his body is not nourished thereby. He may even be forced to purge from his body whatever he has ingested in a way that could harm him. Whosoever undertakes a venture that is within his means and capacity (mā tahūzuhū ṭāqatuhū) will not only safeguard his capital but he will also not be denied his profits

Fourthly, the merchant should also not invest his money in a venture with as low return on investment (yabṭuʾukhurūjuhūʿanhu).⁸² For example, investing in merchandise which is in demand only by a few (yaqillu ṭullābuhū) because most people do not need it, like precious stones (al-jawhar) which are only desired by grandees and kings, who may even deal badly with their agents and fail to pay them. Likewise books of philosophy (kutub al-ḥikma) which are only in demand by philosophers and scholars, most of whom are indigent and few in number as well; and anything else whose buyers are few.

As for those whose livelihood is by the earning of a fixed income like clerks and soldiers and those like them, or like artisans who work with their hands and their limbs, then they should practice steadfastness in their crafts, mutual counseling in regard thereof, and discharge their obligations, for this will have a good influence on them.

Fifthly, the merchant should be quick in selling his merchandise but unhurried in selling his landed property, even though there is little profit in selling merchandise but great profit in selling property.

As for expending wealth, the merchant should take precaution against five factors, namely, niggardliness (al-luʾm), tight-fistedness (al-taqtīr), intemperance (al-saraf), ostentatiousness (al-badhakh), and bad management (sūʾ al-tadbīr).

As for niggardliness, it means, O my brother, restraining oneself from spending on acts of goodness (abwāb al-jamīl), like spending in charity on relatives (muwāsāt al-qarāba), honouring friends, visiting saintly personages (tafaqqud dhawīal-ḥurumāt); and advocacy of good causes (taʾāhud abwāb al-birr) such as spending in charity on the needs of people (maḥāwīj al-nās). All these should be in accordance with one’s capacity, means and ability.⁸³

As for tightfistedness, it means being miserly and restrictive (al-taḍyīq) in spending on what is necessary and unavoidable, like on food provisioning for family (aqwāt al-ahl) and on the wellbeing of dependents (maṣāliḥ al-ʿiyāl).

As for intemperance, it is indulgence in pleasures (al-ladhdhāt) and dissipative desires (al-shahawāt).

As for ostentatiousness, it is that a person goes beyond what is the cultural norm for one of his socio-economic class (ṭabaqatihī) and situation (tawrihī) in the manner of his food and dress, simply for the purpose of showing off to people (ṭalaban li al-mubāhāh).

As for bad management, it is that the merchant fails to apportion (yuwazziʿ) his expenditure on all his needs in an equitable and balanced manner (ʿalā al-taqsīṭ wa al-istiwāʾ) so that he is able to fulfill in each sector of needs what is due to it. For if he fails to do that but instead spends excessively in one sector but insufficiently in another, then his affairs shall become chaotic and his circumstances disordered and be at variance with one another.

Bad management also means failing to acquire in advance something that he needs while it is abundant, accessible and secure from exposure to harm, but instead he procrastinates in obtaining it until he is compelled to do so by his moment of need in difficult circumstances (maʿa shiddat al-iḍṭirār), in which case he is forced to acquire it by whatever means and at whatever expense while he will have no choice in the matter.

Bad management also means that he prematurely acquires what he needs, so much so that the thing becomes spoiled in the time it is left unused,⁸⁴ like buying it before the period in which he needs to use it, or that it deteriorates due to his neglect in preserving and safeguarding it.

The depraved (al-laʾīm) is ruined (yuʾtā min qibal) by his ignorance of what is good, due to his lack of knowledge of its significance and merits. The niggardly is ruined by his lack of knowledge of his obligations (abwāb al-wājib), and his ignorance of fair dealing (al-ʿadl) and of the shortcomings of neglecting it.

The intemperate is ruined by his predilection for pleasures over sound thinking. The depraved and the intemperate are both detested by people for the two are inclined to be oppressive (al-jūr). The intemperate is detested by the elite due to his ignorance, and by the laity due to their envy of him.

The ostentatious (aṣḥāb al-badhkh) is the worst of them all; for the depraved and the niggardly—though detested by people—are both more likely to preserve their wealth. As for the intemperate—though he is disliked—is at least able to enjoy his pleasures. But as for the ostentatious, he has neither wealth preserved nor pleasures enjoyed. The bad manager is in a worse situation than him, for he is ruined because he does not know how much he should spend (maqādir al-nafaqa) and when. Good management involves recognizing the various acts of goodness (abwāb al-jamīl) and inclining towards them; and the various acts of necessary righteousness (abwāb al-ḥaqq al-lāzim) and not violating them; and restraining from indulgence in pleasures; not living beyond one’s circumstance and station; and understanding the parameters of what is needed in each context and expending in it only to the extent that is due to it, thereby avoiding over spending in one context to the extent of under spending in another; and recognizing the times of need for each thing such that it is not prematurely acquired and is thus spoiled or wasted before the time for its actual utilization; and not procrastinating in acquiring something that is needed until the time is nigh for its use and thereby one is compelled to acquire it hurriedly with great trouble; or until the time for its use has lapsed, thus rendering its acquirement in vain, or difficult and hard to get except at a very high price.

Those who practice these traits of good management are counted among the honorable, the generous, the rich, the good, the charitable, the determined and resolute, and (counted among) the people of good management.

As for the merchant who is a good manager, owning crops (ghalla), or profiting from his wealth, or having a ship (jārī) in his service, and is able to generate from this venture enough to provide for himself and his dependents, as well as some surplus besides, some of which he spends in various acts of charity (abwāb al-birr) as aforesaid, and some he keeps in reserve for his lifespan (yaddakhiru li zamānihī) and as insurance against the vicissitudes of his age (nawāʾib dahrihī), such a man should not demand more than all that, for to demand for more than that is greediness (shara).

Prudence in expenditure (al-ihtiyāṭ fī mā yunfiq) requires that one buys the necessities like foodstuffs (al-aqwāt) from the very threshing floors (min bayādirihā) when they are in abundant supply and easily available, like wheat (al-hinṭa), barley (al-shaʿīr) and corn (al-qiṭān); and others, such as condiments (al-adm), like honey (al-ʿasl), cooking butter (al-samn), ghee (al-shahm) and others of their kind.

Abundant firewood (al-ḥaṭab)mustalso beboughtandproperly storedina specially protected place, to be released monthly to family members according to the amount they need, and they should be supplied with enough grains such as wheat, barley and seeds, so that what they require of these for two whole years is always stored up as precaution against calamities befalling crops (jawaʾiḥ al-ghallāt), sieges and blockades (al-haṣārāt), and similar uncertainties.

Such precautionary measures are also to be observed with regard to clothing (al-kiswa), such that it is to be purchased when it is in abundant supply (fī unfuwān jalbihā), and many are selling it while few are buying it. Winter clothing is to be purchased in summertime and summer clothing in wintertime. Clothes also have to be acquired when the supply is abundant, and winter clothing is best bought in summer whereas summer clothing is best bought in winter.

Circumspection and prudence are also to be observed in the case of buildings (al-abniya) and their repair and upkeep (al-marammāt). For this purpose one has to procure lumber (al-khashab), reeds (al-qaṣab), lime (al-jīr), stones (al-ḥijāra), and other materials as aforesaid with regard to the various measures for the upkeep of landed properties.

Artisans should be commissioned (for working on buildings) during periods when the daytime is long or during the equinox (iʿtidālihī).⁸⁵ One should also procure slaves and livestock when their prices are rising (fī waqt al-ghalāʾ) and when the market for foodstuffs is brisk (nafaq al-aqwāt). During this period also, he should procure properties (al-amlāk) such as houses, shops, and similar premises. As for farm lands (al-mazāriʿ), mills (al-arḥiya) and bakeries (al-afrān), he should not procure them except when they are inexpensive and fairly priced. Likewise, he should procure the various types of weapons (al- silāḥ) in times of peace (al-silm), security (al-amn) and calm (al-daʿa).

Adi Setia is Founding Coordinator of the Mu‘amalah Research Group (MRG), International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM); Email: adisetiawangsa@gmail.com.

1. A shortened, alternative rendering is The Guide to the Merits of Commerce; complete English translation by Adi Setia, The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2011).

2. Al-Sayyid Muḥammad ʿĀshūr, Dirāsat fī al-Fikr al-Iqtiṣād al-ʿArabī: Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī al-Dimashqī (Cairo: Dār al-Ittiḥād al-ʿArabī li al-Ṭibāʿa, 1973), 1-69 after 192.

3. Al-Bishrī al-Shūrabjī (ed.), al-Ishārat ilā Maḥāsin al-Tijārat (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1977).

4. ʿĀshūr, Dirāsat,.

5. R. B. Serjeant, Islamic Textiles: Material for a History up to the Mongol Conquest (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1972), 140 n. 39, citing C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Weimar-Berlin, 1898-1902), Suppl. Bd. (Leyden, 1937-39), I, 907, and Maʿālim al-Qurba fī Aḥkām al-Ḥisba of Ibn Ukhuwwa, ed. R. Levy, Gibb Memorial Series, n.s., XII, xv. ff.

6. Helmutt Ritter, “Ein arabisches Handbuch der Handelswissenschaft,” in Der Islam, 7 (1917), 2-3. As indicated on p. 3, he omitted from his translation and study significant parts (up to one third or so) of the work (e.g., those parts related to alchemy, metallurgy, crafts, etc.) already translated and studied earlier by E. Wiedemann in Beiträgen zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, XXX and XXXII. His learned and scholarly introduction (1-45) provides a detailed and systematic overview of the content of the work and its Greek (e.g., Bryson) and Islamic (e.g., al-Jāḥiẓ) sources. I express my gratitude to my friend and colleague Dr. Syamsuddin Arif, for his linguistic help in going through the German of Ritter’s study.

7. On him see for instance Lisān al-Dīnibn al-Khaṭīb (712-775/1313-1374), Kitāb al-Iḥāṭa fī Akhbār Gharnāṭa, cited in the beautiful English translation of his travels by Roland Broadhurst (trans.), The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 2001), 20.

8. For his biography, see al-Qādī Bahā’ al-Dīn ibn Shaddād, Kitāb Sīrah Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī al-musammā bi al-Nawādir al-Ṣulṭāniyya wa al-Maḥāsin al-Yūsufiyya (Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-Adab wa l-Muʾayyad, 1317 H); see also Stanley Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, rev. ed. (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2007) and C. W. Wilson (ed.), The Life of Saladin, or What Befell Sultan Yusuf, 3rd ed. (Lahore: Islamic Book Service, 1980).

9. Yassine Essid, A Critique of the Origins of Islamic Economic Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 220; Ahmed El-Ashker and Rodney Wilson, Islamic Economics: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 254; ʿAshūr, Dirāsat, 4-5; and al-Shurabjī, al-Ishārat,8.

10. ʿAshūr, Dirāsat, 24; Broadhurst, Travels, 272.

11. Al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 11-13.

12. Essid, Critique, 221.

13. Michael Bonner, “The Kitab al-Kasb attributed to al-Shaybānī: Poverty, Surplus, and the Circulation of Wealth,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (Jul.-Sep. 2001) 3, 410-427; idem, “Poverty and Charity in the Rise of Islam,” in Michael Bonner, Amy Singer and Mine Ener (eds.), Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts (New York: SUNY, 2003), 13-30; and idem, “Poverty and Economics in the Qur’an,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (Winter 2005) 3, 391-406.

14. There are a great number of books describing and analyzing the causes of the current global financial meltdown, but perhaps among the more accessible is the succinct volume by Dean Baker, Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy (Sausalito, CA: PoliPoint, 2009).

15. Discussed in ʿĀshūr, Dirāsat, 77-83.

16. John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004).

17. For instance, Nathan Lewis, Gold: The Once and Future Money (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007); and Deirdre Kent, Healthy Money, Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems (Nelson, New Zealand: Craig Potton, 2005).

18. Translations based on the Arabic text edited by al-Shūrabjī.

19. By Ahmed A. F. El-Ashker and Rodney Wilson (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

20. Al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 20-21.

21. Referring to the primary substances of medical remedies; see al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 20 n. 9.

22. Or: agricultural crops.

23. Or: straining.

24. Or: linen; cf. Serjeant, Islamic Textiles, 204.

25. That is, shaken free from dust; see ibid.

26. Or: carded.

27. That is, crafts are interdependent, such that to cultivate a particular craft one may need the instruments or products produced by other crafts. For instance, the art of calligraphy requires paper made by the paper maker.

28. Or: mason.

29. Or: blacksmith.

30. That is, miners.

31. That is, to have community life; to live in communities.

32. Or: to provide for their needs by relying on one another.

33. The meaning is not very clear to me here; most probably it refers to the aggressive power required for the purpose of mutual protection in coming together in herds (as in the case of antelopes), or for the purpose of hunting in packs for prey (as in the case of wolves).

34. That is, in the sense they do not have to cook or process it, but eat it raw directly from nature.

35. That is, domesticated animals.

36. That is, not left running wild in their original natural state.

37. Al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 21-23.

38. For, say, the supply of nails.

39. Who is in need of, for instance, worked wood.

40. For example, one loaf of bread for every bag of charcoal; or one hour of smithing is equivalent to two hours of carpentry.

41. The term jawhar indicates that the medium of exchange and unit of value must be some tangible thing possessing intrinsic value.

42. Or: liquid cooking oil in general.

43. This situation exemplifies the absence of temporal coincidence of needs or wants, in which each party may want what the other party owns but not at that particular time. For instance, a tailor may need a wooden table from the carpenter at a particular time but the carpenter may not need tailored clothes from the tailor at that same time.

44. Equivalent to 381.15 grams; see Nuh Ha Mim Keller, trans., Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Beltsville, Maryland: Amana, 1997), 873-874, w.15.0-w.15.2; cf. M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Measures and Weights in the Islamic World: An English Translation of Walter Hinz’s Handbook Islamiche Maße und Gewichte (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2003), 40-47 passim; and cf. Adel Allouche, Mamluk Economics: A Study and Translation of al-Maqrīzī’s Ighāthah (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 90.

45. Singular ḥiml, which is approximately 250 kilograms; see Marcinkowski, Measures & Weights, 18-19.

46. So there arises the question of just how much olive oil can be exchanged for wheat and vice versa.

47. Or: status.

48. Or: mutable, That is, their shapes can change easily, parts can be broken off, etc.

49. A bluish greenish patina or rust that forms on copper, brass or bronze when it is exposed to air or moisture over a period of time.

50. A silver coin of 2.97 grams; see Marcinkowski, Measures & Weights, 1-11 passim, and Allouche, Mamluk Economics, 89.

51. That is, in buying and selling things of insignificant value like small amounts of firewood, bread, groceries, etc.

52. That is, two pieces of gold or silver can be easily combined into one piece, or one piece easily subdivided into many smaller pieces.

53. That is, such that debased coins can be easily differentiated from authentic coins.

54. That is, over time a convention was formed on the use of gold and silver as currency for commercial exchange.

55. Or: two substances.

56. That is, gold and silver coins.

57. Or: well educated men of culture in general, including intellectuals, scholars and poets.

58. Or: a coolness, invoking a pleasant, happy feeling in the heart.

59. That is, giving strength to the person.

60. His livelihood becomes easy.

61. Al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 64-70.

62. That is, measured out in cubit-units of length.

63. Probably in relation to determining compensation for service or work based on its duration, e.g., a month’s wages or rent.

64. Or: accountants.

65. That is, that possibility of a price increase, hence they will wait for that

price increase to come to pass before selling.

66. That is, the former merchant.

67. The meaning of this passage does not seem very clear to me, but the gist of it may be as follows: a merchant is paid ten dinars for some merchandise but then he spreads the news that he was paid eleven dinars. This news persuades other merchants to refrain from selling similar merchandise at ten dinars but instead they wait until the market price has gone up to eleven dinars. Meanwhile the first merchant will make use of this situation to sell his merchandise with little competition from the other merchants.

68. Presumably because he is not in need of the merchandise and so is more willing to part with it at a cheap price.

69. ʿAshūr reads this passage as indicating al-Dimashqīʾs definition of commerce. Dirāsat, 63ff.

70. Or: unsuccessful.

71. Or: except in working and trading with venture capital.

72. Ḥadīth narrated by Ibn Mājah, al-Bayhaqī, al-ʿAjlūnī and al-Suyūṭī; see al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 67 n. 68.

73. That is, not money in the form of debased or misshapen coins.

74. Literally “raising,” “lifting,” but grammatically “nominating,” That is, putting the subject in the nominative case.

75. Literally “ennobling,” but grammatically “accusating,” That is, putting the predicate in the accusative case.

76. Here the allusion is to the literal rather than the grammatical meanings of the two terms, meaning that though there may be no change in one’s past and future grammatical situation, in real life that may not be the case, and so one should not delay in taking advantage of a good opportunity when it comes one’s way.

77. For a discussion of this ḥadīth, see al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 68 n. 69.

78. For a discussion of this ḥadīth, see al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, n. 70.

79. That is, the more butter in the pastry, the richer the taste and hence the better the sale.

80. For a discussion of this ḥadīth, see al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 69 n. 72.

81. Al-Shūrabjī, al-Ishārat, 80-84.

82. Or: in ventures which are difficult to profitably close or conclude.

83. This means that people of means who fail spend on these reasonable charitable works are niggardly.

84. That is, spoiled while waiting to be used.

85. That is, during the period between the vernal (March) and autumnal

TRADE, COMMERCE, MONEY AND MARKET

IN THE ISLAMIC EXPERIENCE: A BRIEF OVERVIEW¹

Adi Setia

This brief overview focuses on the meanings of trade and commerce (tijārah) in Islam and related terms such as kasb, iktisāb (earning), wealth (māl), work (ʿamal), money (naqd) and market (sūq) as these have been expressed in some salient aspects of early Madīnan and later Islamic practice, and in their exposition by the classical ulama in their many authoritative works on the fiqh and adab of kasb (legal and ethico-moral aspects of earning a livelihood).

Keywords: Trade, commerce, money, kasb, earning, market, Islamic Gift Economy

“O believers! Give provisions out of the good things you have earned.”

(al-Baqarah, 2: 267)

Wealth decreases not through charity,

just as it increases not through perfidy.”

(al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ: Ādāb al-Kasb)

Preamble

Perhaps we may begin by citing this ḥadīth:

A man from among the Helpers (Al-Anṣār) came to the Messenger of Allāh, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, asking him for a handout. The Prophet, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, said to him, “Do you not have anything in your house?” He said, “Yes, O Messenger of Allāh, a saddle blanket (ḥils)—i.e., a garment (kisāʾ)² —we wear part of it and spread out part of it, and a bowl we drink from.” He said, “Bring both of them to me,” and so he brought them. The Messenger of Allāh, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, took the two things in his hands and said, “Who will buy these two?” A man said, “I’ll take them for one dirham,³ O Messenger of Allāh.” The Messenger of Allāh, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, said (again), “Who will pay two or three times more than a dirham?” Another man said, “I’ll take them for two dirhams, O Messenger of Allāh,” and so he gave the items to him. The Prophet, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, took the two dirhams and gave them to the Helper, and said, “Buy food with one of these and hand it over to your family, and with the other buy an adz (qaddūm) and bring it to me.” He brought it to him and the Messenger of Allāh, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, fixed to it a cane with his own hands and then he said, “Go and gather firewood and sell it, and I shall not see you for fifteen days.” He did accordingly and then came back to him having acquired ten dirhams. With some of it he bought food and with some of it he bought clothes. The Messenger of Allāh, may Allāh bless him and give him peace, said to him, “This is better for you than having (the habit of) beggary scarring your face on the Day of Resurrection.”⁴

This ḥadīth provides one with much food for thought respecting Islam’s general attitude towards working for a living (kasb). The poor are not to resort to beggary (suʾāl)⁵ so long as they are physically fit and able to work for their livelihoods by pursuing a craft, trading, farming, hunting, foraging, working for a wage, and so on. Instead of giving handouts to the poor, one is to first ascertain their capacity to work and advise them accordingly, for they may not be really poor but only conditioned into thinking they are poor. Thus we find in this hadith the Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, giving what we may now call “business advice” to a young man finding his way in the world.

The general idea here is trade not aid, industry not charity. My personal experience is that the poor are generally able to help themselves out of demeaning poverty and beggary into dignified self-reliance if they are given even half a chance to engage in wholesome earning and right livelihood (kasb ṭayyib). The verse in the Qurʾān cited in the epigraph above shows quite clearly that provisioning (infāq) for ourselves and the community in general is by way of earning (kasb, iktisāb, ʿamal), and not by way of beggary (suʾāl).

Any doubt about the priority of earning over beggary is dispelled when we see the Migrants (muhājirūn) refusing charity from the Helpers (anṣār) but rather opting to work and earn, even though many of the former had become destitute after having been compelled to leave their property and wealth behind in Makkah when they emigrated to Madīnah.

Originally, after the Migrants had arrived in Madinah, the Helpers asked the Prophet (pbuh) to divide the date-palm trees between them and their brethren from Makkah, which he nevertheless disapproved of. Then they all concurred that the Helpers divide their properties with the Migrants on the condition that the latter would give half the fruit from the orchards every year, and they would recompense the Helpers by working with them and putting in labor. This situation continued for several years and was as good as over subsequent [sic] to the conquest of Khaybar in the seventh year when all the Migrants economically became virtually self-sufficient.⁶

A companion ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Awf has shed some light on the nature of the developments which the new Muslim community was putting up in Madinah in the wake of the Hijrah. He said: “When we came to Madinah as emigrants, the Prophet (pbuh) established a bond of brotherhood between me and Saʿd b.al-Rabiʿ. Saʿd b. al-Rabiʿ said to me: “I am the richest among the Helpers, so I will give you half of my wealth and you may look at my two wives and whichever of the two you may choose I will divorce her, and when she has completed her prescribed period (before marriage) you may marry her.” ‘Abd al-Rahman replied: “I am not in need of all that. Is there a market-place where trade is practiced?” Saʿd replied: “The market of Banu Qaynuqa’ (the Jewish tribe).” ‘Abd al-Rahman went to the market the following day. He continued going there regularly, and few days later he came having traces of yellow (scent) on his body. The Prophet (pbuh) asked him whether he had got married and ‘Abd al- Rahman replied in affirmative. Then the Prophet (pbuh) asked him to give a wedding banquet (walimah) even if with one sheep. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Awf ultimately emerged as one of the wealthiest Prophet’s companions dubbed alongside such as were like him [sic] as Khuzzan Allah (Allah’s treasurers).⁷

The Market of the Prophet

This brings us to look deeper into the socio-economic significance of the market of the Prophet’ (sūq al-nabiyy). It is well known that among the first ‘things that the Prophet, Allāh’s blessing and peace be on him, did upon his arrival in Madinah was the establishment of the communal mosque and the communal market for the Muslims. There was already at the time the market of the Banū Qaynuqāʿ, but it seemed that the Prophet, Allāh’s blessing and peace be on him, wanted a separate, independent market for the nascent Muslim community based on the principle of “al-sūq ṣadaqah” = “the market is charity,” i.e., a charitable endowment for the public good of the Muslim community as a whole wherein no taxes were to be imposed, hence: sūq al- muslimīna ka muṣallā al-muṣallīna, man sabaqa ilā shayʾin fa huwa lahū yawmahu ḥattā yadaʿahū = “the market of the Muslims is like the place of worship of the worshippers; whosoever proceeds to a spot [in it] it is his for the day until he departs from it.”⁸

Obviously, if the market is, ethically and morally speaking, an extension of the mosque, just as muʿāmalah or tijārah (commercial transaction) an extension of ʿibādah (devotion),⁹ then it is of religious necessity that the market of the Muslims must be one in which the proprieties of commerce and livelihood (ādab al-kasb wa al-maʿāsh) are applied. This in turn entails the establishment of an autonomous Islamic market and economy in which usurious, monopolistic and perfidious practices are all proscribed and justice, benevolence and fairness prevails, and thereby the duty of enjoining right and forbidding wrong fulfilled. Just as Muslims needed in the past to have their own public places of spiritual devotion to Allāh (i.e., the congregational masājid), so likewise, they needed also to have their own public places (aswāq) for commercial transactions amongst themselves; they needed to have their own markets, and by extension, their own economies—and they need the same today.

Hence, just as the mosque was seen as the devotional commons, the market was seen as the transactional commons. Just as the mosque was open for access to all without any restriction, so the market was open for access to all without retriction. The idea was that anyone, especially the poor and destitute, can go to the open, common or communal market anytime for free without having to pay entrance fees, and do a little work or a little trading, and thereby earn himself out of destitution and provide for himself and his dependents, and, if he has surplus, to provide out of that for the public good of the community, i.e., to reinvest his surplus into his community. This has been called (in the case of the later Ottoman economy) the market-welfare economy (most encapsulated in the institution of waqf or ḥabs = charitable endowments), in which the ‘market’ and the ‘welfare’ aspects of the economy are seamlessly integrated as a single, organic economy.¹⁰

So, the mosque and the market are the twin pillars of the Islamic community, for we can’t allow our dīn and ourselves to be fragmented, practicing one set of ethics in the mosque (in ʿibādah) but a totally contrarian set of ethics in the market (in muʿāmalah), for we have to uphold taqwā (mindfulness of the Creator) wherever we are: ittaqūLlāha ḥaythu kuntum.

Therefore we find our classical scholars writing volumious works on aḥkām al-masājid (the rules of the mosques)¹¹ as well as aḥkām al-sūq (rules of the marketplace).¹²

There are also many works on the role and duty of the market inspectors (muḥtasib)¹³ to ensure that all the protocols and parameters of fair exchange, honesty and integrity are adhered to by all participants in the market.

ʿUmar—Allāh be pleased with him—the second caliph of Islam was reported to have made it his habit to make the rounds of the market and beaten some of the traders with his leather whip, saying, “None trades in our market¹⁴ except those who understand the rules of transactions, lest they should partake of usurious gain, wittingly or unwittingly (lā yabīʿu fī sūqinā illā man yafqahu, wa illā akala al-ribā shāʾa am abā).”¹⁵

Dīn, Madīnah and the Commercial Enterprise

Imam Muḥāmmad al-Shaybānī¹⁶ has said to the effect that the relation between ʿibādah and muʿāmalah is like the relation between ṣalāt and ṭahārah, the one cannot do without the other.¹⁷ So, on the one hand, the dīn or religion pertains to one’s personal devotional relation to and with the Creator (khāliq), and, on the other hand, to one’s interpersonal relation to and with people (and by extension, the rest of creation = al-khalq).

It is in Madīnah that these two integral dimensions of the dīn were fully realised and manisfested, for the very etymology of the word ‘madīnah’ refers to the place where the dīn is lived and practiced, both in the private and in the public spheres of life—dīn as one’s way of being in the world, in private and in public. Hence, as Professor al-Attas puts it, “The City of the Prophet signified the Place where true dīn was enacted under his authority and jurisdiction.... the City became, for the Community, the epitome of the socio-political order of Islam,”¹⁸ and:

....the concept dīn reflects the idea of a kingdom—a cosmopolis. Commerce and trade are the life blood of the cosmopolis....it is no wonder then that in the Holy Qur’an worldly life is depicted so persistently in the apt metaphors of commercial enterprise....Man is inexorably engaged in the trade: al-tijārah, in which he is himself the subject as well as object of his trade. He is his own capital, and his loss and gain depend on his own sense of responsibility and exercise of freedom. He carries out the trust of buying and selling, of bayʿah, and bartering: ishtarā, and it is his self that he buys or sells or barters; and depending upon his own inclination towards the exercise of his will and deeds his trade will either prosper...or suffer loss.¹⁹

This understanding of the concept of the ‘city’ in Islam, as encapsulated in the word ‘madīnah’ brings us to the meaning of ‘community’ (jamāʿah, mujtamaʿ, ummah). A community is only a community of people as opposed to a mere gathering or crowd when the individuals constituting it adhere to a common ethics (ādāb) and laws (fiqh) of formal and informal exchange amongst themselves. Just as they believe in and adhere to the same set of proprieties and rules pertaining to their collective devotion to their Creator in the mosque, so likewise in their collective transactions in the marketplace. As a matter of fact, the classical scholars from the earliest times have written profusely on the ethics and rules of earning, trade, commerce and livelihood in order to render explicit the common ground on which believers are to interact and transact (muʿāmalah) with one another.²⁰

Without this shared, common ethics and laws of what is right or wrong, or proper or improper, in interpersonal relationships we don’t have an integrated community (jamāʿāt al-waḥdah) founded on transcendent conscience but only a disparate multitude (jamaʿat al-kasrah) who just so happen to find themselves in the same locality at a particular point in time due to some accidental emporal convenience and expedience, with no true idea of, and hence, no real commitment to the common good (maṣlaḥah ʿāmmah).²¹

This is why trade and commerce founded on transcendent conscience and not mere individualistic or egoistic convenience is considered an aspect of farḍ al-kifāyah, which is namely the duty of provisioning what suffices the community. Through lawful, wholesome and meaningful trade, commerce and work (kasb) one is helping in the provisioning (infāq) of the community through the very act of provisioning for oneself. Hence the verse, “O believers, give provisions from out of the good things you have earned.”²²

This shows that economics and the economy in Islam has nothing to do with current secular, nihilistic notions of scarcity chasing after unlimited wants, but everything to do with the earning of right livelihood and provisioning thereby for the common good. Since, in this vision the individual is never disembedded from the communal, then ensuring the common good is also ensuring individual good—the two goods are like the two sides of the same coin and constituting it. In fact, economics in Islam, or ‘Islamic economics’, if we admit of such a thing, is properly defined as, “The science of earning and provisioning for the common good,” or simply, the science of earning and provisioning = ʿilm al-iktisāb wa al-infāq.

We may extend and expand on this reflection to come to the necessary insight that observing personal, individual worship (ʿibadāt) is not sufficient in order for a person to live a fully Islāmic life—or to realise Islām as a complete way of life—unless at the same time he takes care to cultivate the interpersonal transactional relationship (muʿāmalāt) required to support it; thus the inextricable linkage between farḍu ʿayn (individual duty) and farḍu kifāyah (communal duty), and between personal devotion and social relation, so nicely alluded to by Imam Muḥammad al-Shaybānī in his statements, “In earning a livelihood there is the meaning of cooperation in acts of devotion (fī al-kasb maʿnā al-muʿāwanah ʿalā al-qurab),” and “Permissible earning is in the category of cooperation in acts of devotion and obedience (al-kasb al-ḥalāl min bāb al-muʿāwanah ʿalā al-qurab wa al-ṭāʿāt).”²³

Hence, in order to observe ʿibādah, we need to cultivate an appropriate muʿāmalah to support and nurture it; the one simply cannot do without the other. Similarly, Imam al-Ghazālī, in his Kitāb Ādāb al-kasb wa al-Maʿāsh, says:

The second matter is to intend, through one’s craft, commerce, or work, the discharge of one of the obligations of sufficiencies (furūḍ al-kifāyāt). Were the crafts and the businesses to be abandoned, the livelihoods of people would be disrupted, and most people would perish [as a consequence]. Therefore the well-ordering of the affairs of all is realized through the cooperation of all (intiẓām amr al-kull bi-taʿāwun al-kull), while each group assumes an occupation. If all of them were to be devoted to a single vocation (ṣināʿah), then the rest of the vocations would be left unattended and people would be destroyed. It is in the light of this reality that some of the scholars have interpreted the saying of the Prophet—Allāh bless him and give him peace—”The diversity of my Community is a mercy (ikhtilāf ummatī raḥmatun),” as referring to the diversity of their occupations in the various crafts and vocations. And of the crafts, there are those which are important, and there are those which can be done without because these have to do with the seeking of comforts (al-niʿam) and embellishment (al-tazayyun) in this world. Hence, one should be occupied with an important vocation so that by practicing it he takes care of something of concern in the religion for the Muslims.²⁴

Trade and the Meaning and Role of Money

Because of the emphasis on justice (ʿadl) and fair exchange (mumāthalah, tarāḍin), a lot of attention was given to the precept of ‘sound money’ and the avoidance and preemption of anything that would compromise or dilute that precept, for since money is a medium of exchange as well as a measure of value (and thereby, a store of value), the notion of money (naqd) is tight closely to the notion of measure (miqdār, miʿyar) and to the notion of value and price (qīmah and thaman). Here, it is pertinent to cite in full the view of Jaʿfar al-Dimashqī (a merchant-scholar of the 6th /12th century) on money, which encapsulates the classical view on the matter:

Now human beings are dependent on one another as mentioned earlier, but the time of need of a person does not often coincide with the time of need of another person, as in the case of a carpenter who may be in need of an ironsmith but could not find one (at that particular time). It may also happen that there is no equivalence between the respective quantities (maqādīr mutasāwiyah) of what each need from the other, and there is no way of knowing the (relative) value of each item of each kind of goods, and of knowing the rate of exchange (miqdār al-ʿiwaḍ) between one item and another item of a part of the merchandise among all the parts of the rest of the merchandise, nor the relative value of each of the different crafts. Hence there is a need for something by which all goods can be priced (yuthamman bihī), and by which the value of each thing can be defined ( yuʿarraf bihā) in relation to every other thing. So when a person requires something which is for sale or for use, he pays the value of that thing with that substance (al-jawhar) by which all things are priced. If such a convention was not adopted, then it would not be possible for the exchange of one thing for another to take place, as in the case of a person who has something such as olive oil (al-zayt), wheat (al-qamḥ) or other similar products, whereas his counterpart has other goods such that the need of each party for what the other possesses does not concur at the same time. It can also happen that although the mutual need of each party for what the other possesses coincides, there may not be mutual agreement (ittifāq) on the equitable value of the amount each should give in exchange for what the other owns, such that there occurs neither excess nor deficiency (lā yazīdu wa lā yanquṣu) in what each exchanges with the other. For example, the owner of wheat may require a riṭl of olive oil, whereas the owner of cooking oil may require a two camel-loads (ḥimlay) of wheat, or the wheat seller may require a large quantity of oil whereas the oil seller a small quantity of wheat, in which case disagreement ( al-ikhtilāf) may occur between the two parties (on an equitable way to exchange one quantity for the other). (To solve such a problem) the ancients (al-awāʾil) searched for something by which to price all things. They looked into all the things in the possession of man, whether plants, animals or minerals. They excluded both plants and animals from this function (rutbah, of pricing) due to their being transformable (mustaḥīl) and quickly perishable (yusriʿu ilayhi al-fasādu). As for the minerals, they chose from among them those metallic ores which are hard and can be melted (al-aḥjār al-dhāʾibah al-jāmidah). They then excluded from these iron, copper and lead. As for iron, it was rejected due to its susceptibility to rust (al-ṣadaʾ), and copper too was rejected for the same reason. As for lead, it was rejected due to its dullness (taswīd) and its excessive softness (līn) which leads to transformation in the shapes of its form (ashkāl ṣūratihī). Likewise some people rejected copper due to its susceptibility to verdigris (al-zinjār). However, some people mint (ṭabaʿa) coins out of it like dirhams (al-dirham), for they use them (copper coins) as small change (fulūsan) in their transactions. All people are agreed on the preferment (tafḍīl) of gold (dhahab) and silver ( al-fiḍḍah) due to their being readily suited (surʿat al-muwātā) for casting (al-sabk), forging (al-ṭarq), combining (al-jamʿ), separating (al-tafriqa) and shaping (al-tashkīl) into any form required. Gold and silver also have a beautiful luster (ḥusnu al- rawnaq), with no unpleasant odor (al-rawāʾiḥ) or taste (al-ṭuʿūm), and they endure when buried. They are both also receptive to being marked with marks (al-ʿalamāt) that preserve them; and the permanence of their features (thabāt al-simāt) protects them from debasement (al-ghashsh) and counterfeiting (al-tadlīs). Therefore the ancients minted coins from gold and silver, and by these coins they priced all things. They saw that gold was greater in status (ajallu qadran) with respect to its beautiful luster, the compactness of its parts (talazzuz al-ajzāʾ), its durability when buried for a long period of time, and its conduciveness to repeated castings in fire. They then determined each piece of gold as being equivalent to several pieces of silver, and they made both the price (thamanan) for all other things. Thus they came to an accord on this arrangement (iṣṭalaḥū ʿalā dhālika) in order that people might purchase their needs at the time they wanted them, and so that whosoever obtained these two metals (al-jawharān) it would be as if all kinds of goods were brought together in his presence whenever he desired. Therefore the need in livelihood for inarticulate wealth became imperative. Some men of letters (al-udabāʾ) have said:

al-ʿaynu li al-ʿayni qurratun wa li al-ẓahri quwwatun wa man malaka al-ṣafrāʾa ibyaḍḍa wajhuhū wa ikhḍarra ʿayshahū

Gold is a delight to the eyes, and a support for the spine; and whosoever owns the yellow thing luminous becomes his countenance and verdant the pasture of his life.²⁵

In short, money is a measure by which the values of tangible goods and intangible services can be compared and brought into a balanced relationship (mīzān) with one another in order to facilitate fair, equitable exchange andpreempt witting or unwitting exploitation by one party of the other in the transaction. Hence a measure must be physically and quantitatively well defined, and once defined it must remain so, in order that is can thereby serve as a reliable measure of relative values. This also means that the form of money chosen has to be one that provides its own backing by virtue of its intrinsic physical value without the need for it to be backed by or pegged to some other, external forms of money or guarantors of value.

In fact, money’s role as a medium of exchange is an integral function of its more foundational role as a measure of value.²⁶ For example, the dinar has been defined since classical times as equivalent to one mithqāl of gold, and a mithqāl was equivalent to qirāṭ or carats of gold.²⁷ As noted by Heck, “All mint operations were precisely regulated, and a very elaborate system of glass weights soon evolved to maintain precise standards in coinage production as well.”²⁸

Overview of Some Empirical Aspects of Early Madinan Trade and Commerce

Contrary to the view of Patricia Crone²⁹ and other like-minded orientalists, the Ḥijāz before and at the advent of Islam was a locus of active intra-regional and inter-regional trade between Syria in the north and Yemen in the south,³⁰ and through them, areas beyond the immediate confines of the Arabian peninsular. When the Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, arrived and settled in Madīnaḥ, the Muhājirūn who emigrated with him were generally merchants and traders while the indigenous Anṣār were primarily agriculturists. As for the Jewish tribes of Madīnah, they engaged in both farming and trading and they basically controlled Madinan economy, but that quickly changed when the market of the Muslims was established by the Prophet, Allāh’s blessings and peace be on him.³¹

Both the gold denarius of the Romans and the silver drachma of the Persians, as well as indigenously produced gold and silver bullion were widely used in trading and commerce. There were large-scale Hijāzī gold and silver mining operations producing liquid capital (gold and silver) by which trade was facilitated. As the economic historian Gene. W. Heck puts it:

The combination of source documentation and residual onsite physical evidence makes readily apparent that one cannot begin to comprehend the functioning of the early Hijazi economy without first perceiving the indispensable role of precious metals.³²

According to classical historians like al-Balādhurī and al-Maqrizī, there were attempts by the early caliphs (AbūBakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī) to produce indigenous Islamic currency (coinage) based on Byzantine and Sasanid prototypes. These early Madinan efforts culminated in the comprehensive monetary reforms of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Mālik between 73-79/692- 698, for he understood very well that the political integrity of the caliphate went hand-in-hand with monetary unity, and this in turn was the foundation of the economic prosperity and resilience of the empire.³³

Though the Ḥijāz was generally barren, it was dotted with fertile oases of thriving agricultural production throughout the Madinan and nearby regions at Ṭaʾif, Nakhlah, Khaybar, Fadak, Yanbuʿ, Wādī al-Qurā, al-Suwarqiyyah, Wādī al-ʿAqīq, and elsewhere. Wheat, barley, sorghum, alfalfa, vegetables, citrus, grapes, olives, dates and pomegranates were cultivated. The Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, as well as many of his companions were known to have interests or invested heavily in these farms and gardens. Livestock was also important. The third caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, was reported to have contributed 950 camels and 50 horses to the Islamic army. Both documentary and archaelogical evidence attests clearly to the commercial importance of farming and agriculture. Clearly it must be recognized that some degree of internal economic prosperity based on both production and trade underpinned the success of the Muslim expansion beyond the Arabian peninsular.³⁴

According to Heck, who has based his very informative research on early classical sources,

.as quite diverse—ranging from mining to hunting, fishing...the non-agricultural industrial base of early medieval Hijaz to construction and manufacturing and other productive undertakings....³⁵

As meticulously documented by Heck, important industries included jewelry smithing, blacksmithing, tanning and leather-making, textile production and weaving, and perfumeries.

Heck has also highligted some salient structural elements in the flourishing of early Madinan trade, namely:

...capital, labor, fiducial instruments to meld the two; and a

structured operating environment amenable to the conduct of

productive business operations.³⁶

Here we would like to draw attention to the important role played by fiducial instruments or commercial contracts for applying capital toward the mobilization of labor in the production of goods for the market places.

The Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, and many of the companions were well known to have engaged in various forms of this contractual business partnership. Large, inter-regional trading caravans were financed by a mixture of macro- and micro-investments in this way. According to Imam al-Sarakhsī:

People of al-Madinah called this contract of muqaradah, and this is based on a certain tradition regarding Uthman who committed a sum of funds to a man in the form of a muqaradah.... This derives from al-qard, which means cutting. For in this contract, the investor cuts off disposal of this sum of money from his own use [and thereby put it at the disposal of his business agent = mudarib]....The possessor of capital may not always find it possible to engage in profitable trade activity, and those who can engage in it may not possess the capital. Yet profit cannot be obtained except by both capital and trading. Through this contract, both objectives are attained.³⁷

So, contrary to the current view that business undertakings are not possible except through various forms of usurious debt-financing created by the profit maximization financial intermediation of impersonal and disembedded banks, the Islamic historical experience has shown that large scale intra- and inter-regional can be financed effectively and equitably through profit-and-risk-sharing, non-usurious business partnerhip contractual arrangements, as well as other direct people-to-people investment structures.

These structures today are called by various names, such as venture capital, community interest companies, crowd funding, impact investment, independent business networks, social enterprises, community supported agriculture, and so on and so forth, all of which can be again restructured within the ethico-legal framework of the various relevant muʿāmalah contractual forms.³⁸

Conclusion

One major, intangible factor in the flourishing of trade and commerce in early Madīnah was the general climate of mutual trust that obtained between participants in commercial transactions. Usury and usurious contracts were prohibited while equitable business partnership contractual forms were encouraged in its place. The market of the Muslims established by the Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, was effectively (as Heck calls it) a “free-trade zone” where neither taxes nor price controls were imposed.

Monopoly, hoarding, bribery, perjury, fraud, deceit, counterfeiting and so on were all proscribed; and contracts were binding and were to be honoured. All these substantive ethical precepts and the irformal expressions in normative contractual instruments served to “maintain the integrity of market function” so as to ensure a socio-economic exchange that embeds personal interest into the larger context of communal interest, leading to the “provisioning of what suffices the community.”

Futher readings

Abū Ghuddah, ʿAbdul Fattāḥ, ed. Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, Kitāb al-Kasb. Aleppo: Maktab al-Maṭbūʿāt al-Islāmiyyah, 1417/1997.

AbūGhuddah, ʿAbdul Fattāḥ, ed. al-Khallāl, AbūBakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (d. 311 H). al-Ḥathth ʿalā al-Tijārah wa al-Ṣināʿah wa al-ʿAmal. Aleppo: Maktab al-Maṭbūʿāt al-Islāmiyyah, 1995.

Abū ʿUbayd, al-Qāsim ibn Sallām. Kitāb al-Amwāl. Trans. ʿImrān Aḥsan Khān Nyazee as The Book of Revenue. Reading: Garnet, 2003.

Allouche, Adel. Mamluk Economics. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994.

ʿĀshūr, al-Sayyid Muḥammad, Dirāsatu fī al-Fikri al-Iqtiṣādī al-ʿArabī: Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn ʿAli al-Dimashqī. Cairo: Dār al-Ittiḥād al-ʿArabī li al-Ṭibāʿah, 1973.

Badrān, Aḥmad Jābir, ed. Imam Muḥammad al-Shaybānī, Kitāb al-Kasb: al-Iktisāb fī Rizq al-Mustaṭāb. Cairo: Markaz al-Dirāsāt al-Fiqhiyyah wa al-Iqtiṣādiyyah, 2004.

Bonner, Michael. “The Kitāb al-Kasb attributed to al-Shaybānī: Poverty, Surplus, and the Circulation of Wealth.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 121, no. 3 (Jul.—Sep. 2001), pp. 410—427.

Bonner, Michael. “Poverty and Charity in the Rise of Islam.” Michael Bonner, Amy Singer and Mine Ener, eds. Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts. New York: SUNY, 2003, pp. 13—30.

Bonner, Michael. “Poverty and Economics in the Qur’an.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 35, no. 3 (Winter 2005), pp. 391—406.

Cizakca, Murat. A History of Philanthropic Foundations: The Islamic World from the Seventh Century to the Present. Istanul: Bogazici University Press, 2000.

Cizakca, Murat. A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships : The Islamic World and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

al-Dimashqī, Abū Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī, al-Ishāratu ilā Maḥāsini al-Tijārati. Ed. al-Bishrī al-Shūrabjī. Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyyah, 1977.

al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Ed. Abū Ḥafṣ Sayyid ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ṣādiq ibn ʿImrān, 4 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1992.

Hassan, Abdullah Alwi. Sales and Contracts in Early Islamic Commercial Law. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2007.

Heck, Gene W. Islam, Inc.: An Early Business History. Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2004.

Heck, Gene W. Charlemagne, Muhammad and the Arab Roots of Capitalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006.

Heck, Gene W. Medieval Muslim Money: The Cornerstone of a Commercial Empire. Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2004.

Ibn Abī Dunyā, Abū Bakr. Iṣlāḥ al-Māl. Ed. Muṣṭafā al-Quḍāh. Cairo: Dār al-Wafāʾ, 1990.

Ibrahim, Mahmood. Merchant Capital and Islam. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.

al-Jāḥiẓ,AbūʿUthmānʿAmruibnBaḥr,al-Tabṣṣur bi al-Tijārah.Cairo:Maktabat al-Khāniji, 1994.

al-Khallāl, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (d. 311 H). al-Ḥathth ʿalā al-Tijārah wa al-Ṣināʿah wa al-ʿAmal. Ed. ʿAbdul Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah. Aleppo: Maktab al-Maṭbuʿāt al-Islāmiyyah, 1995.

al-Khallāl, Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (d. 311 H). al-Ḥathth ʿalā al-Tijārah wa al-Ṣināʿah wa al-ʿAmal. Ed. Abū ʿAbdillāh Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥaddād. Riyāḍ: Dār al-ʿĀṣimah, 1404H?

Kister, M. J. “The Market of the Prophet.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, CIII (1965).

Lambton, A. K. S. “The Merchant in Medieval Islam.” Locust’s Leg: Studies in Honor of S. H. Taquizadeh. London, 1962.

Lewis, Bernard. “The Islamic Guilds,” Economic History Review, VII (1937).

Marcinkowski, M. Ismail. Measures and Weights in the Islamic World: An English Translation of Walther Hinz’s Handbook Islamische MaBe und Gewichte. Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2003.

al-Muḥāsibi, ʿAbdullāh al-Ḥārith ibn Asad, al-Makāsib wa al-Waraʿ, ed. Muḥammad ʿUthman al-Khist. Cairo: Maktabat al-Qurʾān, 1983.

Naji, A. J. and Y. N. Ali. “The Sūqs of Basrah: Commercial Organization and Activity in Medieval Islamic Society.” Journal of the Economic and Social Histoty of the Orient, XXIV (1981).

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al-Sarakhsī, Abu Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abū Sahl. al-Mabsūṭ, 30 vols. Ed. Abi Abdillah Muḥammad ʿḤasan al-Shāfiʿī’. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2001.

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Adi Setia is Associate Professor, Center for Advanced Studies in Islam, Science and Civilization (CASIS), Malaysia. Email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

1. This paper was originally prepared for the One-Day Intensive Certificate Course on “The Adab and Fiqh of the Islamic Market,” organized by UNRIBA and CASIS, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 11, 2014.

2. Probably a saddle blanket that also served as a garment.

3. A silver coin or silver piece of between 3 to 4 grams of silver; the weight of the dirham was standardized later during the Umayyad caliphate to 2.97 grams of silver; see M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Measures and Weights in the Islamic World (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2003), 2.

4. Narrated by Imam Abū Dāwūd, ḥadīth no. 1641, cited in Imām ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ibn al-Lubūdī (circa 900/1500), Faḍl al-Iktisāb wa Aḥkām al-Kasb wa Ādāb al-Maʿīshah, ed., Suhayl Zakkār (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1997), bound together with his edition of Imam Muḥammad al-Shaybānī’s Kitāb al-Kasb; trans. Adi Setia and Mahdi Lock, The Virtue of Working for a Living (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2012), 10-11.

5. Modern day beggary comes in many forms, euphemised as donation, grant, aid, subsidy, charity, scholarship, welfare and so on; a separate article will be written to analyse this sorry phenomenon, inshāʾ Allāh.

6. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, “Kitāb al-Jihād wa al-Siyar,” Ḥadīth No. 4375; and Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, “Kitāb al-Hibah,” Ḥadīth No. 799, cited in Spahic Omer, “Madinah Market during the Prophet’s Time (Part 1),” published online at http://www.medinanet.org/index.php/islamic-issues/172-madinah-market-during-the-prophets-time-part-1, footnote 14; see also Spahic Omer, The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Urbanization of Madinah (Kuala Lumpur: IIUM, 2013), especially Chapter 6 on “The Significance and Role of the Madinah Market.”

7. Al-Kattānī, al-Tarātib al-Idāriyyah, vol.2 p. 403, cited in Spahic Omer, Part 1, footnote 22.

8. al-Hindī, Kanz al-ʿUmmāl, 5: 488, no. 2688, cited in M. J. Kister, “The Market of the Prophet,” in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 8 no. 3 (December 1965), 272-276, on 276n2. (http://www.kister.huji.ac.il/content/market-prophet). For more details, see also the informative, well documented article by Dr. Spahic Omer, “Madinah Market during the Prophet’s Time, ”(Part 1 & 2), ”published online at http://www.medinanet.org/index.php/islamic-issues/172- madinah-market-during-the-prophets-time-part-1; and at http:// www.medinanet.org/index.php/islamic-issues/171-madinah-market- during-the-prophets-time-part-2; see also Spahic Omer, The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Urbanization of Madinah (Kuala Lumpur: IIUM, 2013), especially Chapter 6 on “The Significance and Role of the Madinah Market.”

9. Adi Setia, trans. (of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, Kitāb al-Kasb), The Book of Earning a Livelihhod (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2011), 56-57 and 83-84.

10. Relli Shechter, “Market Welfare in the Early-Modern Ottoman Economy: A Histographic Overview with Many Questions,” in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (JESHO), 48: 2 (2005), 253-276.

11. For example, Abū Bakr ibn Zayd al-Jurāʿī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 883H), Tuhfat al-Rāki ʿwaal-Sājid bi Aḥkāmal-Masājid (Kuwait: Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 2004).

12. Yaḥyā ibn ʿUmar al-Andalusī al-Kinānī (213-289H), Kitāb al-Naẓar wa al-Aḥkām fī Jāmīʿ Aḥwāl al-Sūq (Tunis, 1975); see also the article on him by Faruk Bal, “Hisbah Literature as a Source of Islamic Economics: Yahya Omar al-Andalusi’s al-Ahkam [sic] al-Suq,” in Turkish Studies, vol. 8, no. 12 (Fall 2013), 133-149 (); and also the informative article by, Abdul Azim Islahi, “Perception of Market and Pricing among the Sixteenteh Century Muslim Scholars,” in Thoughts on Economics, volume 18, number 1, pp. 33-41; also accessible online at: http://www.ierbbd.org/wpcontent/uploads/2010/03/journals/Journal%20Vol%20 18%20No%201/PERCEPTION%20OF%20MARKETAbdul%20 Azim%20Islahi.doc.

13. ʿAbd Al-Raḥmān b. Naṣr Al-Shayzarī, Nihāyat Al-Rutbah fī Ṭalab al-Ḥisbah (The Utmost Authority in the Pursuit of Hisbah). Trans., R. P. Buckley, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); M. Izzi Dien, The Theory and the Practice of Market Law in Medieval Islam: A Study of Kitāb Nisāb al-Iḥtisāb of Umar b.Muḥammad al-Sunamī (Wiltshire: E. J. W Gibb Memorial Trust, 1997). See also the paper by Abdul Azim Islahi, Islahi, Abdul Azim, “Works on market supervision and sharʿiyah governance (al-hisbah wa al-siyasah al-sharʿiyah) by the sixteenth century scholars,” in Quarterly Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society , vol. 54, no. 3 (July 2008), pp. 7-20.

14. i.e., the market places of the Muslims.

15. Imām al-Ghazālī, Kitāb Ādāb al-Kasb wa al-Maʿāsh, trans. Adi Setia, The Book of the Proprieties of Earning and Living (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2013), 20.

16. Student of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and Imām Mālik, and teacher of Imām al-Shāfiʿī.

17. Al-Shaybānī, The Book of Earning a Livelihood, trans. Adi Setia (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2012), 8-9, 56-57.

18. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, “Islam: the Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics and Morality,” in Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: an Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC), 43n3.

19. Idem, 56-57.

20. See the articles in this book and the relevant references in the footnotes therein.

21. Cf. the “naturalistic” analysis of ‘community’ in Tony Lawson, “Ontology and the Study of Social Reality: Emergence, Organisation, Community, Power, Social Relations, Corporations, Artefacts and Money,” in Cambridge Journal of Economics, 36 (2012), 345-385.

22. al-Baqarah, 2: 267.

23. The Book of Earning a Livelihood, 56-57, and 83-84.

24. The Book of the Proprieties of Earning and Living, 100-101.

25. Jaʿfar al-Dimashqī (circa 6th century H), al-Ishārah ilā Mahāsin al-Tijārah, trans. Adi Setia, The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2011), 11-15.

26. This will be elaborated in a separate paper, “The Concept of Money in Islam,” inshāʾ Allāh.

27. The classical gold dinar of one mithqal in weight is equivalent to 4.233 grams of gold; in the Arabian peninsular, Syria and Egypt, one mithqal was equal to 24 qirats, hence one qirat is 0.176 grams; see M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Measures and Weights in the Islamic World (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2003), 2-3. In any case, we need to revive—in vision and in action—the classical Islamic science and fiqh of weights and measures in contemporary terms.

28. Gene W. Heck, Medieval Muslim Money, The Cornerstone of A Commercial Empire: An Inquiry into the Evolution of Islam’s Monetary Policy as Shaped by the Precious Metals Indigenous to the Dar al-Islam (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2004), 33.

29. Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); see the review of it in R. B. Serjeant, “Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1990, p.472.

30. As alluded to in the Qurʾānic verses, Quraysh: 1-4.

31. For more details of the early Madinan market, see Spahic Omer, The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Urbanization of Madinah (Kuala Lumpur: IIUM, 2013), especially Chapter 6 on “The Significance and Role of the Madinah Market”; and more generally Gene W. Heck, Islam, Inc.: An Early Business History (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2004).

32. Gene W. Heck, Medieval Muslim Money, xxii.

33. Gene W. Heck, Medieval Muslim Money, 23-33.

34. Heck, Islam, Inc., 35-78 passim.

35. Ibid., 55ff.

36. Ibid., 79ff.

37. Cited in Heck, Islam, Inc., 112.

38. To be elaborated in a separate paper, “Structuralization of Muʿāmalah Contractual Forms in the Modern World,” inshāʾAllāh.

MONEY, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD & ECONOMIC PROSPERITY:

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE ISLAMIC EXPERIENCE¹

Adi Setia²

1. Money in Relation to Trade

Because of the emphasis on justice (ăadl), fair exchange (mumāthalah, tasāwī), andmutual consent (tarāḍin), a lot of attention was given to the precept of ‘sound money’ and the avoidance and preemption of anything that would compromise or dilute that precept.³ Since money is a medium of exchange as well as a measure of value (and thereby, a store of value), the notion of money (naqd) is tight closely to the notion of measure (miqdār, miăyar) and to the notion of value (qīmah, thaman). Here, I think it is pertinent to cite in full the view of Jaʿfar al-Dimashqī (a merchant-scholar of the 6 /12 century) on money, which is representative of the classical Islamic view⁴ on the nature and role of money in relation to economic exchange:

They looked into all the things in the possession of man, whether plants, animals or minerals. They excluded both plants and animals from this function (rutbah, of pricing) due to their being transformable (mustaḥīl) and quickly perishable (yusriău ilayhi al-fasādu)¹⁰. As for the minerals, they chose from among them those metallic ores which are hard and can be melted (al-aḥjār al-dhāĂibah al-jāmidah). They then excluded from these iron, copper and lead. As for iron, it was rejected due to its susceptibility to rust (al-ṣadaĂ), and copper too was rejected for the same reason. As for lead, it was rejected due to its dullness (taswīd) and its excessive softness (līn) which leads to transformation in the shapes of its form (ashkāl ṣūratihī). Likewise some people rejected copper due to its susceptibility to verdigris (al-zinjār). However, some people mint (ṭabaăa) coins out of it like dirhams (al-dirham), for they use them (copper coins) as small change (fulūsan) in their transactions. All people are agreed on the preferment (tafḍīl) of gold (dhahab) and silver (al-fiḍḍah) due to their being readily suited (surăat al-muwātā) for casting (al-sabk), forging (al-ṭarq), combining (al-jamă), separating (al-tafriqah) and shaping (al-tashkīl) into any form required.¹¹ Gold and silver also have a beautiful luster (ḥusnu al-rawnaq), with no unpleasant odor (al-rawāĂiḥ) or taste ( al- ṭuăūm), and they endure when buried.¹² They are both also receptive to being marked with marks (al-ăalamāt) that preserve them; and the permanence of their features (thabāt al-simāt) protects them from debasement (al-ghashsh) and counterfeiting (al-tadlīs).¹³ Therefore the ancients minted coins from gold and silver, and by these coins they priced all things. They saw that gold was greater in value (ajallu qadran) with respect to its beautiful luster, the compactness of its parts (talazzuz al-ajzāĂ), its durability when buried for a long period of time, and its conduciveness to repeated castings in fire. They then determined each piece of gold to be equivalent to several pieces of silver, and they made both the price (thamanan) for all other things. Thus they came to an accord on this arrangement (iṣṭalaḥū ăalā dhālika) in order that people might purchase their needs at the time they wanted them, and so that whosoever obtained these two metals (al-jawharān) it would be as if all kinds of goods were brought together in his presence whenever he desired.¹⁴ Therefore the need in livelihood for inarticulate wealth (al-māl al-ṣāmit)¹⁵ became imperative. Some men of letters (al-udabāĂ) have said: “al-ăaynu li al-ăayni qurratun wa li al-ẓahri quwwatun wa man malaka al-ṣafrāĂa ibyabḍa wajhuhū wa ikhḍarra ăayshahū (gold is a delight to the eyes, and a support for the spine; and whosoever owns the yellow thing luminous becomes his countenance and verdant the pasture of his life).”¹⁶

By doing a deep-reading to discern the underlying axio-economic logic implicate in Dimashqi’s take on the genesis, nature and role of money in livelihood and exchange, we can find that he is actually saying (in effect) that money was created to serve as an instrument of justice and equity in exchange. In other words, people were having big trouble in ensuring justice and equity (tasāwī) in barter exchange because of the lack of a common measure (and thereby a common medium) to preempt one party wittingly or unwittingly taking too much and giving too little at the expense of the other party in the exchange, and so they created money as a commonly reliable and equitable measure of value to ensure and promote what we would now call fair trade, fair value, and fair price.

As a pivotal instrument of fair trade, money becomes also by extension an instrument of trustworthy trade. The upshot here is that money grew out of a moral and pragmatic concern for justice, fairness, equity and mutual trust.¹⁷ So, how come now we have a monetary structure that is instead an instrument of systemic oppression, exploitation and distrust? Hence we need to question the current narrative that money grew out of mistrust of trading with strangers, or that the money and the gift economies are incompatible. I personally keep tabs (keeping accounts and records of transactions) with both friends and foes (or strangers) alike precisely because I believe in being, and want to be, fair to them, which is quite independent of whether I trust them or not. Not trusting someone is no excuse for defrauding or shortchanging them in any way, and, likewise, trusting or being trusted by someone is no excuse for taking them for granted. So, one big test of any financial system in order to see if its money is true or false or good or bad is to analyse it to see whether it serves as an instrument of justice orinjustice in exchange. In fact, when a money system is intrinsically sound and fair, it serves to engenders trust and cooperation amongst people, be they friends or strangers.¹⁸

In short, money is a measure by which the values of tangible goods and intangible services can be compared and brought into a balanced relationship with one another in order to facilitate fair, equitable exchange and preempt witting or unwitting exploitation by one party of another in the transaction. Hence, a measure must be objectively well-defined in physical and quantitative terms, and once well-defined it must remain so, in order that it can thereby serve as a common, objective, durable and reliable measure of relative values. This also means that the form of money chosen has to be one that provides for its own backing by virtue of its intrinsic physical or quantitative (as opposed to purely numerical, nominal, notional or face) value without the need for it to be backed by, or pegged to some other, external forms of money.

In fact, the role of money as a medium of exchange is an integral function of its more foundational role as a measure of value.¹⁹ For example, the dīnār has been defined since classical times as equivalent to one mithqāl of gold, and a mithqāl was equivalent to 24 qirāṭ or carats of gold.²⁰ As noted by the economic historian, Gene W. Heck in regard to gold and silver coin (dīnār and dirham) production in early Islamic history, “All mint operations were precisely regulated, and a very elaborate system of glass weights soon evolved to maintain precise standards in coinage production as well.^21''

2. Refining the Definition of Money

From al-Dimashqī’s remarkably sophisticated elaboration²² (if we do a deep-reading of it) of the role of money in community exchange systems, we may come to both a functional and purposive definition of money, and then take a good look at the various forms, tangible or intangible, money may take so as to best realise its function and purpose. As for the functional definition, money is actually comprised of three distinct but overlapping and mutually entailing functions which should ideally be perfectly integrated in any properly structured monetary system, namely:

(a) money as a medium of exchange.

(b) money as a measure of value (or unit of account).

Function (a) shows that money is a medium, meaning a means or instrument, not the end nor the subject matter²³ of exchange; and from ethico-moral considerations (or rational axiology), we know that this exchange cannot be just any exchange, but one that is fair and equitable such that all parties gain equitably from the exchange, and none really lose out. If this fairness fails to obtain, then what we have is not a true exchange by mutual consent, but a form of tacit coercion or exploitation in the transfer of value from one party to the other. In short, money is an instrument of fair exchange of goods and services based on mutual consent²⁴ without any element of tacit or indirect coercion²⁵ (explicit coercion would of course be extortion or even outright seizure or ghasb).

Function (b) shows that money serves as a common denominator of value in terms of which the relative values of goods and services can be more or less equitably compared and evaluated quantitatively, and thereby, measured and expressed in objective terms, that is, priced.

Function (c) shows that money serves to retain the stability of its absolute or intrinsic physical value as well as its relative or extrinsic exchange value in relation to the value of the goods or services that can be bought or traded for it. This means that money has to be physically durable over time (like gold and silver) as well as commanding a stable demand (or purchasing power) as payment for goods and services, as well as debts in general. This means also that to effectively be a store or preserver of value, money has to be (more or less) inflation proof.²⁶ This also means that the form of money chosen has to be one that provides for its own backing by virtue of (i) its intrinsic physical value without the need for it to be backed by or pegged to some other, external²⁷ forms of money, or (ii) by virtue of it being pegged to some well-defined physical or quantitative (but not merely numerical, nomimal or notional) value, without being something physical in itself.²⁸

In addition, the form should also have the following features (mentioned or alluded to by al-Dimashqī), namely, (i) durability, (ii) fungibility, (iii) divisibility, (iv) intrinsic value, (v) recognisability or well-definedness, (vi) transportability, (vii) common acceptability.

We may describe the interconnections and relative importance of these three functions of money as follows: money serving as stable, well-defined measure of value allows it to serve as a reliable medium of fair exchange (or unit of account), which, in turn, allows it to serve as a store of value (preservator of wealth = ḥifẓ al-māl), and thereby, as a standard of deferred payment for the settlement of debts. So here, the notion of measure of value is pivotal and most essential to any meaningful conception of money, for it is at the crux of the critique of the current monetary and financial system (please see Section 4 below).

3. Some Historical Aspects of Early Madīnan Monetary Economy

Contrary to the view of Patricia Crone²⁹ and other like-minded orientalists, the Ḥijāz³⁰ before and at the advent of Islam was a locus of active intra-regional and inter-regional trade between Syria in the north and Yemen in the south,³¹ and through them areas beyond the immediate confines of the Arabian peninsular. When the Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, arrived and settled in Madīnaḥ, the Muhājirūn (fellow emigrants from Makkah) who emigrated with him were generally merchants and traders while the indigenous Anṣār (or Helpers who welcomed them in Madīnah) were primarily agriculturists. As for the Jewish tribes of Madīnah, they were engaged in both farming and trading, and they basically controlled or dominated Madīnan economy, but that status quo quickly changed when the market (sūq) of the Muslims was established by the Prophet, Allāh’s blessings and peace be on him, in order to ensure the operative realisation of the Islamic ethico-moral precepts and legal rules of market and monetary exchange.³² What follows is a brief sketch of some salient aspect of the early Islamic monetary economy, mostly based on the meticulous research of Gene W. Heck.

(i) Precious metals & money

Both the gold denarius of the Romans and the silver drachma of the Persians, as well as indigenously produced gold and silver bullion were already widely used in trading and commerce in the early Islamic period. There were large-scale Ḥijāzī gold and silver mining operations producing liquid capital (gold and silver) by which trade was facilitated. According to the economic historian, Gene W. Heck, “The combination of source documentation and residual onsite physical evidence makes readily apparent that one cannot begin to comprehend the functioning of the e33arly Hijazi economy without first perceiving the indispensable role of precious metals.”³³

According to the classical historians like al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892) and al-Maqrīzī (766-845/1364-1442),³⁴ there were attempts by the early caliphs (Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī) to produce indigenous Islamic currency (coinage) based on Byzantine and Sasanid prototypes. These early Madīnan efforts culminated in the comprehensive monetary reforms of the Umayyad caliph, ʿAbd al-Mālik Marwan, between 73-79/692-698, for he understood very well that the political integrity of the caliphate went hand-in-hand with monetary unity, and his reform in turn laid the fiscal fou3n5 dation for the long term the economic prosperity and resilience of the Islamic empire.³⁵

(ii) Agriculture³⁶

Though the Ḥijāz was generally barren, it was dotted with fertile oases of thriving agricultural production throughout the Madīnan and nearby regions at Ṭāʾif, Nakhlah, Khaybar, Fadak, Yanbuʿ, Wādī al-Qurā, al-Suwarqiyyah, Wādī al-ʿAqīq, and elsewhere. Wheat, barley, sorghum, alfalfa, vegetables, citrus, grapes, olives, dates and pomegranates were cultivated. The Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, as well as many of his Companions were known to have interests or invested heavily in these farms and gardens. Livestock were also important. The third caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, was reported to have contributed 950 camels and 50 horses to the Islamic army. Both documentary and archaelogical evidence attests clearly to the commercial importance of farming and agriculture. Clearly it must be recognised that some degree of already existing internal economic prosperity based on both agricultural production and trade, and oiled by bimetallic (gold and silver) currency underpinned the success of the rapid Muslim expansion beyond the Arabian peninsular.³⁷

(iii) Manufacturing and Industrial Production³⁸

As for manufacturing or craft production, we may again cite Heck (who based his very informative and thorough research on early classical sources), “....the non-agricultural industrial base of early medieval Hijaz was quite diverse—ranging from mining to hunting, fishing to construction and manufacturing and other productive undertakings....”³⁹ Important industries included jewelry smithing, blacksmithing, tanning and leather-making, textiles production and weaving, and perfumeries. Many of these industries are mentioned and discussed in some detail by al-Dimashqī (writing in the 6th/12th centu4r0y) in his much studied manual for merchants entitled, al-Ishārah ilā Maḥāsin al-Tijārah.⁴⁰

(iv) Operative Structures of Madīnan Trade

Heck has also highligted some salient structural elements in the flourishing of early Madinan trade, namely: “...capital, labor, fiduciary instruments to meld the two; and a structured operating environment amenable to the conduct of productive business operations.”⁴¹

Here we would like to draw attention to the important role played by fiduciary instruments or commercial contracts for applying monetary capital toward the mobilization of labor in the production of goods for the market places.

The principal contract of choice for structuring investment was the muḍārabah or qirāḍ contract (what we would now call venture capital or passive partnership), whereby one or a few investors (owners of capital) would capitalize a commercial, production or manufacturing venture undertaken by entrepreneurs (muḍārib) for a predetermined share of the net profit. This is in effect a contract of partnership between capital (gold and/or silver) and work (skill, labour, enterprise). The Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, and many of the august Companions were well known to have engaged in various forms of this contractual business partnership arrangement. Large, inter-regional trading caravans were financed by a mixture of macro- and micro-investments in this way. According to Imam al-Sarakhsī (d. 496/1090):

People of al-Madinah called this, contract of muqaradah, and this is based on a certain tradition regarding Uthman who committed a sum of funds to a man in the form of a muqaradah....This derives from al-qard, which means cutting. For in this contract, the investor cuts off disposal of this sum of money from his own use [and thereby put it at the disposal of his business agent = mudarib]....The possessor of capital may not always find it possible to engage in profitable trade activity, and those who can engage in it may not possess the capital. Yet profit cannot be obtained except by both capital and trading. Through this contract, both objectives are attained.⁴²

So, contrary to the current view that business undertakings are not possible except through various forms of usurious debt-financing created by the profit maximization financial intermediation of impersonal banks largely disembedded from the socio-economic realities and needs of communities, the Islamic historical experience has shown that large scale intra- and inter-regional trade can be financed effectively and equitably through profit- and risk-sharing, non-usurious business partnerhip contractual arrangements, as well as other direct people-to-people (P2P) or business-to- business (B2B) investment structures.

These structures today are called by various names, such as venture capital, community interest companies, crowd funding, impact investment, independent business networks, social enterprises, community supported agriculture, barter trading networks, commerical trade exchanges, community cooperative micro-investment funds⁴³ and so on and so forth, all of which can again be restructured by creative and enterprising Muslims today within the ethico-legal framework of the various muăāmalah contractual forms.⁴⁴

4. Islamic Critiques of the Current Monetary and Financial Systems

These critiques logically follow from the classical Islamic normative-positive⁴⁵ understanding of money (outlined in Section 2), and the manner this understanding has played out in Islamic socio-economic history (overviewed in Section 3), and theyalso entail and extend to the systemic critique of the so-called Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF) industry, insofar as it is grafted onto, embedded in and dependent on the current monetary system.⁴⁶ Needless to say, these critiques are hence also well-informed and well-documented in reference to normative Islamic religious ethico-moral and legal precepts, Islamic and western socio-economic history, and positive (current, empirical) economic realities, as well as theoretical economic and monetary considerations (or economic rationality).

These rich, multi-perspectival critiques have been compiled and summarized by Ahamed Kameel Mydin Meera in his Real Money: Money and Payment Ssytem from an Islamic Perspective,⁴⁷ Tarek El-Diwany in his The Problem with Interest,⁴⁸ and Mahmoud el-Gamal (especially in relation to IBF) in his Islamic Finance Law, Economics, and Practice.⁴⁹ Powerful insider-critiques of the global Islamic finance industry (by former and current practitioners) have also recently arisen in the works of Yusuf Jha,⁵⁰ Abdul Manap,⁵¹ Mehmet Asutay⁵² and Harris Irfan.⁵³ The well-known scholar of Islamic and western commercial law, Professor Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, has also penned and published compelling critiques of IBF.⁵⁴

All these critiques should be taken seriously into consideration by all those working to revive and making relevant again the economic and financial ethos of Islam. Philosophically, we may view these critiques as resonating, as a whole, with the discursive framework of critical realism, as expounded, for instance, by the prominent Cambridge mathematician and economist, Tony Lawson;⁵⁵ and economically, with the work of say the UK-based New Economics Foundation,⁵⁶ as well as a host of other like-minded thinkers, theorists, researchers and experts like Roy W. Jastram,⁵⁷ Margrit Kennedy,⁵⁸ Bernard Lietaer,⁵⁹ Thomas H. Greco Jr.,⁶⁰ amongst others too many to cite here.

Taken as a whole, the upshot of all their critiques results in the rejection of (i) usury and interest, (ii) the current fiat money system, its resulting seniorage, and the attendant notion of legal tender, and (iii) fractional reserve banking and its attendant multiple credit creation resulting in debt-based money. This rejection is based on the argument that these three main features of the current financial system have resulted in, among others, (i) systemic unethical and immoral transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, (ii) unfair exchange, (iii) inflation, (iv) asset bubbles, and (v) perpetual increase in the money supply leading to unsustainable economic growth.

To be sure, these critiques are not only negative, in the sense of exposing what is problematic with the current system; but they are also, and more importantly, positive, namely, in the sense of showing the way towards uncovering the solutions to those problems that can bring about a sound, fair and sustainable alternative system or systems. Tangible results of these positive critiques are the various ongoing and largely successful experiments in community economy revival, community markets, non-bank equity-financing, social banking,⁶¹ community currencies,⁶² real money based on gold, silver or a basket of selected commodities; and the articulation of a systemic Islamic counter-economics, called the Islamic Gift Economy (IGE)⁶³, [63] as a comprehensive discursive framework (or new economic science) to revive and rearticulate traditional Islamic economic thought and ethos so as to bring it into a close, critical and constructive engagement with all aspects of modern economics, business and finance.

5. Conclusion

One major, intangible factor in the flourishing of trade and commerce in early Madīnah and early Islam in general) was the general climate of mutual trust—which was operationalised through objective, well-defined fiduciary instruments—that obtained between participants in commercial transactions. Usury and usurious contracts were prohibited while equitable business partnership contractual forms were encouraged and established in its place.

The market of the Muslims established by the Prophet, Allāh’s peace and blessings be on him, was effectively (as Heck calls it) a “free-trade zone” where neither taxes nor price controls were imposed. Monopoly, hoarding, bribery, perjury, fraud, deceit, counterfeiting and so on were all proscribed. Contracts were binding and were to be honoured precisely because they were freely entered into out of mutual consent and full informational disclosure.

All these substantive ethical precepts and their formal expression in normative contractual instruments served to “maintain the integrity of market function” so as to ensure a socio-economic exchange that embeds personal interest into the larger context of communal interest, whereby one’s personal good is always in the service of the common good, leading to the fullfilment of the “duty of provisioning of what suffices the community” (farḍ al-kifāyah).⁶⁴

1. Invited paper for Faith and Finance: An Interfaith Workshop, Bangkok, 28-29 November 2015, organized by the World Council of Churches. Many thanks to Athena Peralta and Dhanjal Sophie of the WCC for again (for the fifth time!) facilitating my participation in WCC interfaith workshops and dialogues,

2. General Coordinator for the Islamic Gift Economy (IGE) initiative; email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

3. See for instance, al-Ghazālī, Kitāb Ādāb al-Kasb waĂl-Maăāsh, trans. Adi Setia, The Book of the Proprieties of Earning and Living (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2013).

4. As expressed by classical scholars like al-Iṣfahānī, al-Ghazālī, Ibn Khaldūn and al-Maqrīzī, among many others.

5. This refers to the need for a common measure of value by which the relative values of diverse goods and services can be objectively determined and hence priced.

6. This refers to the function of a medium of exchange served by such a common measure of value.

7. This is the problem of the absence of coincidence of wants to facilitate exchange.

8. This is the problem of ensuring fair exchange in the absence of a common measure of value by which the relative values of goods and services are more or less accurately ascertained.

9. Jaʿfar al-Dimashqī, al-Ishārah ilā Maḥāsin al-Tijārah, trans. Adi Setia, The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2011).

10. Hence the measure of value and thus the medium of exchange adopted must be inherently stable and durable.

11. Hence, in addition to intrinsic stability and durability, it must also be malleable and fungible.

12. Hence, it must be aesthetically pleasing to ensure general acceptability and storable over time and space.

13. Hence, it must be largely immune from debasement and defacement.

14. Hence, it should also serve as a store of value, i.e., largely immune to inflation.

15. i.e., gold and silver.

16. Jaʿfar al-Dimashqī (circa 6th century H), al-Ishārah ilā Mahāsin al-Tijārah, trans. Adi Setia, The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2011), 11-15.

17. And so we find here an implicit notion of economic efficiency as a function of both ethical and practical concerns.

18. For some good discussions on this issue of the role of money in the promotion of trust and cooperation amongst strangers in a large exchange community, see Gabrile Camera, Marco Casari, Maria Bigoni, Money and Trust Among Strangers,” in PNAS, 110: 37 (September 10, 2013), 14889-14893; and Gabrile Camera and Marco Casari, “The Coordination Value of Monetary Exchange: Experimental Evidence,” University of Basel Research Paper (2012), accessed September 04 2016, at http://www2.dse.unibo.it/casari/research/wp-gift-giving.pdf.

19. This will be elaborated in a separate paper, “The Concept, Function and Purpose of Money in Islam,” in shāĂ Allāh.

20. The classical gold dinar of one mithqāl in weight is equivalent to 4.233 grams of gold; in the Arabian peninsular, Syria and Egypt, one mithqāl was equal to 24 qiraṭs (carats), hence one qiraṭ is 0.176 grams; see M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Measures and Weights in the Islamic World (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2003), 2-3. In any case, we need to revive the classical Islamic science and fiqh of weights and measures in contemporary terms.

21. Gene W. Heck, Medieval Muslim Money, The Cornerstone of A Commercial Empire: An Inquiry into the Evolution of Islam’s Monetary Policy as Shaped by the Precious Metals Indigenous to the Dar al-Islam (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2004), 33.

22. To really appreciate the intellectual depth of pre-modern theory of money, one may read, for instance, Leszek Newdania, Money and Justice: A Critique of Modern Money and Banking Systems from the Perspective of Aristotelian and Scholastic Thoughts (London: Routledge, 2015).

23. i.e., goods and services.

24. which entails transparency, honesty and full disclosure (nuṣḥ) of any relevant information impacting on the value of the exchange; see al-Ghazālī, Ādāb al-Kasb,

25. Something that Ahmed Kameel Mydin Meera has most aptly called The Theft of Nations: Return to Gold (Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk, 2004).

26. For a discussion, see Margrit Kennedy, Interest- and Inflation-Free Money (Seva International, 1995), http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/kennedy/english/Interest-and-inflation-free-money.pdf ;and Jill Leyland, Jastram’s The Golden Constant: How Relevant Is It Today,” in Alchemist, Issue 56, http://www.lbma.org.uk/assets/alc56_golden_constant.pdf.

27. i.e., directly or indirectly imposed from the outside onto the exchange polity or community.

28. As in the case of some inflation-free, community currency systems in the West and Japan.

29. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton University Press, 1987); and the review of it by Robert Bertram Serjeant, “Review: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics,” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 110, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1990), 472-486.

30. Al-Hejaz, also Hijaz, is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia, bordered on the west by the Red Sea, on the north by Jordan, on the east by Najd, and on the south by Asir, whose main cities include M1 akkah, Madinah, Taif and Jeddah.

31. This will be elaborated in a separate paper, “The Concept of Money in Islam,” in shāĂ Allāh.

32. For more details of the early Madinan market, please see Spahic Omer, “Introducing the Muslim Market in Madinah,” http://www.medinanet.org/index.php/islamic-issues/172-madinah-market-during-the-prophets-time-part-1; and more generally Gene W. Heck, Islam, Inc.: An Early Business History (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2004).

33. Gene W. Heck, Medieval Muslim Money, xxii.

34. On al-Maqrīzī, see the informative paper by Nasser Rabbat, “Who was al-Maqrizi?: A Biographical Sketch,” in Mamluk Studies Review, vol. 7 no. 2 (2003), 1-19.

35. Gene W. Heck, Medieval Muslim Money, 23-33.

36. For a more comprehensive account of the role of agricultural innovation and production as a major factor in the economic prosperity of the Islamic world, see the useful website www.filaha.org and the seminal study of A. M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World (London-New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

37. Heck, Islam, Inc., 35-78 passim.

38. For an overall historical, see also the two papers by Salim T. S. al-Hassani, “Filling the Gap in the History of Pre-Modern Industry: 1000 Years of Missing Islamic Industry,” in Muslim Heritage (http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/1000-years-of-missing-islamic-industry); idem, “1000 Years of Missing Industrial History,” in Emilia Calvo et alii, eds., A Shared Legacy: Islamic Science East and West (Barcelona: University of Barcelona, 2008), 57-82.

39. Ibid., 55ff.

40. Trans. Adi Setia, The Indicator to the Virtues of Commerce (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2011).

41. Ibid., 79ff.

42. Cited in Heck, Islam, Inc., 112.

43. See, for instance, the case of the ten million strong community micro-finance network called Perbadanan Baitul Mal wat Tamwil in Indonesia, http://pbmtsv.com/.

44. To be elaborated in a separate paper, “Structuralization of Muʿāmalah Contractual Forms in the Modern World,” inshāĂAllāh.

45. That is, rooted in a multidimensional normative religio-moral anrdd positive economic logic.

46. See Tarek el-Diwany, The Problem with Interest, ed (London: Kreatoc, 2010), http://www.kreatoczest.com/kz_publishing_ourtitles-pwi.htm.

47. (Kuala Lumpur: IIUM, 2009).

48. Tarek el-Diwany, The Problem with Interest, 3rd ed (London: Kreatoc, 2010),

49. http://www.kreatoczest.com/kz_publishing_ourtitles-pwi.htm. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

50. From Goldsmiths to Modern Banking: A Frank Look at Money-Creation Process and Its Relevance to Islamic Banking,” in Islam & Civilisational Renewal, vol. no. (2015), file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner/My%20Documents/Downloads/333-1304-1-PB.pdf.

51. Former CEO of the Malaysian based Bank Muamalat who has been active giving detailed expose of the moral and economic contradictions of the Islamic Finance industry in many talks, seminars and workshops.

52. See his “Conceptualising and Locating the Social Failure of Islamic Finance: Aspirations of Islamic Moral Economy vs. the Realities of Islamic Finance,” in Asian and African Area Studies, 11:2 (2012), 93-113; and his “Conceptualisation of the Second Best Solution in Overcoming the Social Failure of Islamic Finance: Homoeconomicus,” Examining the Overpowering of Homoislamicus by (http://www.iefpedia.com/english/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Conceptualisation-of-the-Second-Best- Solution-in-Overcoming-the-Social-Failure-of-Islamic-Finance-Examining-the-Overpowering-of- Homoislamicus-Dr.-Mehmet-Asutay.pdf); see also on youtube his recent important lecture on the topic of moral failure of IBF at Gajah Mada University, Indonesia, “Islamic Moral Economy foundation of Islamic Finance,” September 09 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgyjS7i0Vew).

53. Heaven’s Bankers: Inside the Hidden World of Islamic Finance (Constable, 2015).

54. The Concept of Ribā and Islamic Banking (Niazi Publishing House, 1995); and Prohibition of Ribā Elaborated Islamabad: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 2009); The Rules and Definition of Ribā ((Islamabad: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 2000); and see also his useful website, especially the section on Islamic Finance, http://www.nyazee.org/islbanks/riba/riba.html, where these and his other relevant books and articles can be accessed (but one may need to type in the password: nyazee, to open some of the documents).

55. Reorienting Economics (London: Routledge, 2003) and Economics and Reality (London: Routledge, 1997).

56. http://www.neweconomics.org/.

57. The Golden Constant (Edward Elgar, 2009).

58. Interest and Inflation Free Money (Seva, 1995).

59. The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work and a Wiser World (Random House); and Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013).

60. The End of Money and The Future of Civilization (Chelsea Green, 2009).

61. For instance, the interesting work of the Institute for Social Banking (http://www.social-banking.org/) and its brief paper, “Our Definition of Social Banking (http://www.social-banking.org/uploads/media/ISB_Social_Banking_Definition_English_110614.pdf); see also Olaf Weberand Blair Feltmate, Sustainable Banking: Managing the Social and Environmental Impact of Financial Institutions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).

62. See, for instance, Leander Bindewald et alii, People Powered Money: Designing, Developing & Delivering Community Currencies (London: New Economics Foundation, 2015).

63. See Adi Setia, “The Islamic Gift Economy: A Brief Statement,” in Islamic Sciences (Winter 2015); and Nicholas Mahdi Lock and Adi Setia, trans. Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Islāh al-Māl: The Restoration of Wealth (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2016).

64. Adi Setia, “The Economy of Life: Money, Wealth and Community,” in Ecumenical Review, vol. 67 no.2 (July 2015).

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Resources

Engaging Structural Greed Today - Christians and Muslims in Dialogue

Prologue

Introduction

Report and Reflection: Part 1

Report and Reflection: Part Two

(1) Economy as household caretaking and stewardship

(2) Abundance in relation to scarcity

(3) Trusting in relation to entrusting

(4) The commons in relation to community

(1) Pockets of resistance in relation to transformative action

Epilogue

Adab Of The Mufti

Dimashqian Economics

Trade, Commerce, Money And Market

Money & Right Livelihood

What is IGE?

Resources

Engaging Structural Greed Today - Christians and Muslims in Dialogue

Prologue

Introduction

Report and Reflection: Part 1

Report and Reflection: Part Two

(1) Economy as household caretaking and stewardship

(2) Abundance in relation to scarcity

(3) Trusting in relation to entrusting

(4) The commons in relation to community

(1) Pockets of resistance in relation to transformative action

Epilogue

Adab Of The Mufti

Dimashqian Economics

Trade, Commerce, Money And Market

Money & Right Livelihood