Islamic Alternatives to the Secular Morality Embedded in Modern Economics

Economics started out as a branch of Moral Philosophy. Early in the 20th Century, logical positivists argued that science is the only source of knowledge, and values are not part of science. The desire to make humanities “scientific” led to the creation of the “social sciences”, which claimed to be objective and value-free. In fact, values are inevitably involved in the study of human societies. Instead of being removed, they were buried into the foundations. In economics, “rational” behavior was defined to be the pursuit of pleasure, without any explicit recognition or acknowledgement of the value judgment involved. Similarly, the scarcity foundations of modern economics also conceal many value judgements. In particular, secular morality at the heart of economics makes pursuit of pleasure and profits the goal of life for all rational human beings. Once we recognize the secular moral principles on which modern economics is built, the path to creating an Islamic alternative becomes clear. An Islamic society is built on the foundations of cooperation, generosity, and social responsibility, in stark contrast to the competition, greed, and individualism which are the basis of capitalist societies. Islam has a well-developed moral philosophy to deal with economic affairs embodied in the science of Fiqh as it has developed over the centuries. By rejecting the secular morality built into the foundations of modern economics, we can create a radical alternative based on the moral foundations of Islam. The modern world offers many new challenges; environments radically different from those faced by our elders. Thus, building a revolutionary Islamic economics requires Ijtihad to use the well-developed methodology of Fiqh creatively to find new solutions to the deep and complex problems currently facing humanity and the planet.