The Future of Economics. M. Umer Chapra
prevalence of ideal behaviour. It adopts the more realistic position that, while some people may normally act in an ideal manner, the behaviour of most people tends to fall between the two extremes of selfishness and altruism and, hence, a constant effort (jihād) needs to be made on the part of both individuals and society for moral uplift.
Islam rules out the use of force for such moral uplift: “There shall be no compulsion in religion” (al-Qur’ān, 2: 256), and “Say that the Truth has come from your Lord: Whoever wishes may either believe in it or reject it” (al-Qur’ān, 18: 29).9 Rather, it stresses proper upbringing, creating conviction through logical reasoning and friendly dialogue (al-Qur’ān, 16: 125), and creating an enabling environment for motivating individuals to do what is right and to abstain from doing what is wrong. It expresses a great degree of tolerance for other faiths by stating: “For you your religion, and for me mine” (al-Qur’ān, 109: 6).
To motivate individuals to do their best for their own good as well as that of others, both material and spiritual incentives and deterrents are indispensable. Smoothly functioning competitive markets, where people interact with each other in their self-interest, are necessary for ensuring maximum efficiency. However, while competition does help safeguard social interest, total reliance cannot be placed on it because some people may use unfair means to enrich themselves. Hence governments have tried to pass and enforce regulations. But regulations are not necessarily possible without having a perception of what the right thing to do is. Therefore, once we regulate, we do not remain value-neutral. Moreover, it may not be realistic to primarily depend on regulations because these may be circumvented and need to be effectively enforced. The cost of enforcing them, however, may be lower if there is some effective mechanism for self-enforcement.
Such self-enforcement could come from two sources. One, from the innate goodness of the human being himself. Within the framework of Islamic beliefs, man is good by nature because God has created him in His own image (al-Qur’ān, 30: 30). The individual does not necessarily always act in his self-interest. He also acts in the interest of others and even makes sacrifices for them under a feeling of moral obligation. However, since the individual is also free and his behaviour not determined, he may or may not preserve his innate goodness and may act in ways that are against his nature. This may hurt both him and his society. Therefore, it is necessary to provide incentives and deterrents as well as an enabling environment. The problem with a number of this-worldly incentives and deterrents is that they may be insufficient or not justly implemented.
Therefore, the second source of self-enforcement is belief in the reward and punishment of the Hereafter. If I abstain from doing anything wrong and also sacrifice my material self-interest for the sake of others, I will improve my well-being in the Hereafter. The concept of the Hereafter, thus, gives a long-term perspective to self-interest by extending it beyond a person’s life span in this world. It is not possible for competition and government intervention to always motivate a person to do what is morally right and to abstain from what is morally wrong, to cooperate with others and to make sacrifices for them. Governments can try to ensure competition and to pass laws to safeguard social interest. However, there are so many clandestine ways of restraining competition and of cheating and exploiting others without being caught that it may be difficult for governments to succeed unless there is an inner urge on the part of operators in the market themselves to do what is right, to fulfil their contracts and other commitments faithfully, and not to try to undermine competition or resort to unfair means of earning. In the final analysis, therefore, it is not possible to effectively safeguard social interest without the help of moral values, and the creation of an effective motivating force and a proper environment for their enforcement. In this way, the burden on the government for safeguarding social interest could be reduced.
The Muslim world has not always succeeded in living up to the demands of the Islamic paradigm. Justice to and the well-being of all have not always been ensured.While there have been successes, there have also been serious failures for a number of reasons, some of which will be discussed in Chapters 3 and 6. However, the ideals of the supremacy of moral values, brotherhood and justice, and the well-being of all have been so clear, and so widely upheld that the concepts of rational economic man, positivism, and laissez faire, as defined and understood in conventional economics, have not gained intellectual support from any of the outstanding scholars who represent the mainstream of Islamic thought.
Mainstream Islamic thought has been very clear in characterizing rational behaviour as that which enables the use of God-given resources in a way that helps ensure the individual’s this-worldly as well as other-worldly well-being and, thereby, brings about a balance between material and spiritual pursuits and between self-interest and social interest. There seems to have been a consensus that while poverty (faqr) is undesirable, wealth (ghinā) that is acquired wrongfully or which leads to extravagance, vaingloriousness and inequities is also to be censured. The emphasis of most writers has been on a balance between the material and the spiritual. There is nothing wrong in wealth if it is acquired by rightful means without injustice to anyone, and is spent or invested productively to fulfil one’s own needs and those of others in a balanced manner.10 Righteousness is necessary to help accomplish such a balance. The market mechanism cannot by itself do this. Al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058), like all other Muslim scholars, considered it necessary to rein in individual desires through moral values.11 Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/ 1406) emphasized that moral orientation helps remove mutual rivalry and envy, strengthens group solidarity, and creates an inclination toward righteousness.12
A natural corollary of this has been less emphasis, at least conceptually, on the serving of self-interest and the maximization of wealth and consumption so overly magnified in post-Enlightenment Western philosophy. Though the Muslim world has had its own manifestations of materialism and hedonism, the concept of ‘rational economic man’ in the social-Darwinist, utilitarian and materialist sense of serving self-interest and maximizing wealth and want satisfaction has not received any intellectual blessing.
While a balance between the material and the spiritual seems to have been generally maintained in the hard core of Islamic thought, there have also been deviations. The Sufis or mystics emphasized spiritual ecstasy and de-emphasized material prosperity because wealth had, in their opinion, a tendency to promote arrogance and wrongdoing.13 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728), an eminent early scholar renowned for his piety, wrote in one of his letters: “Beware of this world with wariness; for it is like a snake, smooth to the touch, but its venom is deadly. Turn away from whatever delights thee in it ...”14 Al-Baṣrī was not alone, for a chain of Sufi scholars tried to make poverty a virtue in clear contrast to the Islamic emphasis on balance. However, this has not gone unchallenged. Other scholars have emphasized that there is nothing wrong in rightly-acquired wealth because it provides security and strength and also enables a person to help others and, thereby, fulfil his or her moral obligations. Poverty was considered undesirable because it led to incapacity and helplessness. For example, al-Khallāl (d. 311/923) considered the Sufis to be misguided in rejecting wealth, and quotes Ibn Munabbih, a tābiʿī (follower of the Prophet’s Companions), who equated poverty with the worst death.15 Al-Dimashqī (d. 570/1175) adopts a similar stand.16
The test of a society does not, however, lie so much in its ideals as it does in the actual practice. While the ideal of a balance between material and spiritual pursuits seems to have been generally upheld by both rulers as well as the ruled in early Islamic history, it could not be maintained perpetually afterwards. While the common people have generally lived simple lives, and continue to do so, most rulers and men of wealth and position led lives of revelry and luxury instead of following the middle course. Protests and admonitions were made by the righteous and fearless. However, these protests were generally