7 Steps in the Development of Islamic Economic Science

In my view, there are at least seven steps in the formulation and development of Islamic economic science. They are interlinked with each other. The first step is to identify an economic problem or an issue. It is to be followed by a search for the explicit or implicit guiding principles of the Shafl’ah through which we should seek solution of the problem in question. These principles, which can be derived or deduced from the Qur ‘an and the Sunnah, can be seen as timeless. But at an operational level the knowledge on which these principles are based need to be formulated and conceptualized first. This is where a process of theoretical formulation of the problem begins: the starting point of Islamic economic science. They are relative to space and time. Because “why”, “how”, “what”, “for whom” and “which” questions are to be linked to the principles so identified. These questions need to be examined in terms of available options and alternatives having space and time dimensions.

From this follows the prescription of policy. It is to be clearly recognized at this stage that an “ought” statement of what should be is to be linked not only with the level of theoretical formulation but also with the level of prescription of the policy package. Here both the ethical judgements, being among the more permanent components of the system of values based on the Shañ’ah, and the value judgements on the basis of one’s intuitive feelings or individual opinions concerning specific events may influence both the description of concepts and the prescription of the policy.

Although Islam recognizes the role of the individual value judgement it should always be subordinated to the ethical judgement. Now, the policy which emerges from theoretical analysis is to be implemented. So is the need for an appropriate institution without which an idea cannot take shape. But any gap between the achievement or the actual and the perceived goal or target represents the inadequacy of the theoretical formulation and consequent policy prescription. It calls for the review of the principles. It is also indicative of the need for reconstruction of Islamic economic theory and policy. This is a continuous process. As such, there are unlimited possibilities for the growth of Islamic economic science.

The following table summarizes the steps involved in the development of Islamic economic theories, policies and institutions. This table coupled with the explanatory notes should be helpful in understanding the evolution of Islamic economics as a social science.

It is important to offer some explanatory notes on each of the steps as indicated in the table.

Step (1)
For the sake of simplicity we have identified three basic economic functions — consumption, production and distribution — common to all economic systems irrespective of their differences in ideologies.

Step (2)
Some of the fundamental principles governing these basic functions which are timeless Islamic perspectives rooted in the Shaü’ah. Take the example of “moderation” in consumption. This principle of “moderation” is to be reflected in the consumption behaviour of Muslims both at microeconomic and macroeconomic level. This principle has no time dimension: it is essentially based on the Islamic woridview in economic matters (i.e, normative values).

Step (3)
Now there is a need to identify the method of its operation (i.e. process); this “knowledge” needs to be formulated or conceptualized. This is where the development of the theory starts and where Islamic economic science begins. Thus the choice of variables or the use of ethically-based economic reasoning are to be directed to infer behaviour patterns appropriate for the achievement of preselected objectives (i.e., moderation). Thus, in explaining the consumption function in an Islamic economy it should be possible to identify variables rooted in the Shañ’ah. This theoretical formulation has a time dimens ion. It can be replaced or modified by superior theoretical formulations, which are value-loaded indeed.

Step (4)
It follows that once this concept of “moderation” is formulated, we need to prescribe a definite basket of goods and services to achieve the goal of “moderation” either at individual or at aggregate level. Its contents and composition are changeable; it depends on the level of social and economic conditions of the society concerned.

Step (5)
This step refers to implementation of the policy chosen in step (4). This implementation can be done either by exchange through price mechanism or by transfer payments. This is where we need the development of institutions for the imp lementation of the policy.

Step (6)
This step indicates the need for evaluation in terms of predetermined or perceived goals or targets of how we intend to maximize welfare within the overall framework of principles as set out in step (2) as well as within the dual notion of return—economic and non-economic, making the positive and normative considerations relatively indistinguishable and unimportant.

Step (7)
This step gives the result of the evaluation. This feedback is needed to determine the gap between actual implementation of policy (step (5)) and perceived achievement. This is where the interpretation of the principles (as indicated in step (2)) on which the Islamic economic theory on which development of the policy and institution is based starts (as stated in step (3), (4) and (5)).
Following the logic and reasoning advanced in steps (2) to (7), consumption, production and distribution processes as indicated in the table can be further explained.

HOW TO STUDY ISLAMIC ECONOMICS AS SCIENCE IN REFERENCE TO THE QUR’AN AND THE SUNNAH LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This chapter aims to:

highlight the concept of high morality and ethics in the light of the Qur’an in the development of the foundation of theory of Islamic economics

pinpoint fundamental values necessary for economics behaviour and the sole axiom of Islamic economics studies

emphasize the formalization of the Islamic methodological worldview in otherise of the corresponding economic and socio-scientific reasoning with a brief critique of conventional economic theory and practice
rationalize the need for an alternative economic paradigm.Islamic economics as a field of study began in the 1950s with the works of some Indian scholars in the field. The King Abdulaziz University’s Islamic Economics Research Institute, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia records the origin of the contemporary approach to the study of Islamic economics to be about forty years after that. The works of the great Islamic scholars, the mujtahids, such as Imam Ghazali,Ibn Taimiyya, Imam Shatibi, Ibn Qayyim, and Ibn Khaldun recorded the study of Islamic economic and social problems either in reference to the Qur’an and prophetic teaching, the Sunnah; or independently of those as ideas were based on economic thought in the light of ijtihad (Islamic scholarships). The latter examples are of Ibn Khaldun (Rozenthal 1958), and the Muslim philosopher, Al-Farabi (Waltzer 1985). The use of the terminology ‘Islamic economics’ reflects the classification of educational disciplines given to us by the Western world. While classification of the disciplines carried with it the specialization and independence of the areas of learning as separable activities, Islamic economics, by its contemporary term, became one of the emergent ways of such thinking.

It is fact that a lot of work has been done by Islamic economists regarding the conceptual understanding of the reasons why conventional theory is not relevant to Islamic analysis of economic behaviour. Even some non-Muslim economists have roundly criticized conventional economics and have called for the development of an Islamic ethical approach in order to understand economic behaviour in general. However, most of the scholars writing on Islamic economics have confined their research within the framework of neo-classical economics – a framework that is being increasingly recognised, even by mainstream conventional economists, to be inadequate to explain the economic behaviour of man.

This marks the point of departure of the Islamic methodological worldview and its potentiality to contribute to and sustain Islamic originality, erudition, epistemology, and consequential analytics in the wider academic world. Islamic economics entered the scene of the classified disciplines in a tragic state, depicted critically by Mahomedy (2013). Nonetheless, great potential remains for Islamic economics as a discipline of meta-science that should be grounded on trulyIslamic epistemological foundations. Growing dissatisfaction with conventional economics requires the derivation of Islamic economics from the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. It needs to develop as an alternative framework of analysis so that the edifice of Islamic economics is not constructed on wrong foundations (Khan 2013). This alternative framework has to be such that it can accommodate the knowledge of the Qur’an about human nature and behaviour. The Qur’an is the revealed book of guidance for those who seek guidance.1 It thereby provides guidance for all issues of mind and matter, and thus of science economics in its meta-perspective of morality and ethics embedded in materiality. The methods and models of Islamic economics have to be universal in application and realistic in making assumptions and axioms based on Islamic morals and ethics. It should be noted that the concept of science in the Qur’an and Sunnah is not limited to positive knowledge that is consistent with reality only, but also includes proponent presumptions. For this reason, Muslim jurists are in agreement in calling fiqh a science, although many of its rules are based upon presumptive evidence (Zarka 2003). Therefore, the science of Islamic values must be attached to the notion of Islamic economics.

The Royal Economic Society points out that, since 1999, smaller universities in the United Kingdom have abandoned exclusive focus on economics. Yet the larger universities in the UK, by virtue of their advanced ideas in economic reasoning and by integrating related disciplines, have flourished. One such area that has arisen in the larger universities is heterodox economic theory. According to orthodox economic theory, to which neoclassical economics belongs, the principal attribute of rational choice-making in goods and services is ‘marginal rate of substitution’ between competing goods and services for the command over scarce resource allo-cation between such competing ends. We will also refer to this neoclassical premise as ‘marginalism’. Islamic economics immersed in mainstream orthodox economics could not belong to the holistic sociological economic school. Since then, Islamic economics is in its heyday in the Muslim world. It by and large has been encouraged by the now stylized caption of Islamic finance. The example is the present failing of Islamic banks. They raise large equity values from investors in the market. Unfortunately, Islamic banking and finance is then clearly directed towards a profit-oriented entity rather than a social-based entity, which has not been given attention when the objectives of Islamic economics have been discussed (Mohammad and Shahwan 2013). The major problem of Islamic economics, like Islamic finance, Islamic banking, and other Islamic socio-scientific ventures, is that it has no articulated epistemological foundation. On the other hand, any science, social or natural in category, ought to be based in solid epistemological foundation. Such an orientation gives shape, form, axioms, assumptions, and methodological formalism to the entire body of theory and application. Einstein (Bohr 1985) said that science without epistemology remains muddle-headed. This being the case, the axioms, assumptions, nature, methodology, and applications at the core of Islamic economic reasoning, namely morality and ethics, must be included in the developing framework of Islamic economics. The rise of heterodox economics in recent times is of a deeply ontological and epistemological type. Even neoclassical economics is epistemological in nature according to its own axiom of economic rationality. Classical economics is thoroughly epistemological, in reference to the Theory of Moral Sentiments as Adam Smith’s first great epistemological contribution to economic reasoning. The basic paradigm of science as we have inherited it rests on the epistemology of heteronomy. Heteronomy conveys the nature of dualism between a priori and a posteriori domains of reasoning. We will discuss these issues in subsequent chapters, to bring out the distinctive difference between the rationalism of the Western theory of science and the episteme of unity of knowledge of the Islamic methodological worldview. Contrary to all such epistemological moorings, current Islamic economics, and likewise, all other Islamic socio-scientific fields in recent times have not been able to formalize and contribute to the internal dynamics and functioning of the primal Maximo of the entire Islamic methodological worldview upon which a meta-science can be established. This is the ineluctable axiom of Tawhid as the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge. It exists not simply in words. Rather, as Imam Ghazalisaid (Karim, n.d.), the understanding of Tawhid as a methodological worldview has sixty stages with increasing depth. Islamic economics has casually adopted a surface attitude towards declaring Tawhid (belief) without mentioning its world-system dynamics and axiomatic character in the building of socio-scientific thought, meta-science, and applications (Naqvi 2003).The Islamic methodological worldview is the universal and unique foundation of all Islamic intellection. It is formal in nature if properly utilized for the construction of the cognitive and material world-system and its specifics. Such a formal intellection with its methodology, methods, and application is equally applicable to the building of meta-science as well as economics as discipline in the world learning. On the indispensability of the Islamic methodological worldview in the mundane world-system, Ibn Arabi wrote in his Futuhat (trans. Chittick 1989):

The first way is by way of unveiling. It is an incontrovertible knowledge which is actualized through unveiling and which man finds in him. He receives no obfuscation along with it and is not able to repel it….The second way is the way of reflection and reasoning (istidlal) through rational demonstration (burhan `aqli). This way is lower than the first way, since he who bases his consideration upon proof can be visited by obfuscations which detract from his proof, and only with difficulty can he remove them. The surface approach to Islamic economics, which only utters Tawhid at the beginning and at the roots, rather than throughout the concept, is unable to formalize the monotheistic meaning as a methodology, formalism, and application. As a consequence, in Islamic economics the Kantian problematique of heteronomy between the moral imperative of the a priori domain and the practical reasoning of the a posteriori domain has entered Islamic socio-scientific thought in general and Islamic economics and finance in particular in a most surreptitious way.Heteronomy, like rationalism, causes a dichotomy between the moral law (Tawhid =a priori) and the world-system (a posteriori). Contrarily, the Qur’an presents the moral and cognitive world-systems as being one of a unified and indivisible holism. It has its endogenous dynamics of organic unity of being and becoming concerning mind and matter. The Islamic methodological worldview is thus indispensable, in order to give the universal and uniquely original, revolutionary, essential Islamic foundation to finance, science and society (Choudhury 2015). As was mentioned above, Islamic socio-scientific intellection in general and Islamic economics and finance in particular have not been able to stop the emergence of a field of heterodox economics. Heterodox economics by itself is a deeply onto- logical and epistemological inquiry (Lawson 2003). If the ontological and epistemological foundations of the Qur’an and Sunnah are missed out, then the constructive dynamics of the Islamic foundation cannot be understood. This is equivalent to uttering but not knowing how to cognize and apply the methodology of Tawhid in the building of meta-science for rendering to the world of learning. Will it stay this way? Have not the Qur’an and Sunnah given the challenge to raise the world-system to the pinnacle of knowledge for global well-being? This possibility is not to be found in the present state of Islamic economic thought, by missing out the episteme of Tawhid. Yet substantive effort and contributions in this direction abide.

The nature of Islamic economics according to the Islamic episteme This book elaborates on the epistemological methodology of Tawhid based on the groundwork of a heterodox Islamic economics and finance. The resultant Islamic methodology is rigorously analytical, invoking science, formalism, and analytical depth as well as universal application to particular issues and problems. It is a mistake and a complete denial of scholarly knowledge to say that Tawhid is purely philosophical and that its necessity in Islamic economics is not understood. The fundamental attributes of Islamic economics in the light of Islamic methodology begin from the exegesis of the principle of ‘pairing’ in the Qur’an.3 Pairing conveys the organic unity between the good things of life as well as the association of the bad things of life, in accordance with the Qur’an. The good things are to be accepted; the bad things shunned. Pairing as organic unity of knowledge conveys the universal meaning of God’s creation and purpose. It is a reflection of the unity of being and becoming along the dynamics of forming complementarities

+between the good and recommended things of life. The good things of life participate and complement each other in a unified inter-causal relationship. The bad things compete and marginalize each other. There is no scope of unifying for purposive unity, except to marginalize each other by association and differentiation. This book will explain how the nature of Islamic methodology is intrinsically related, by circular cause and effect, to a deep knowledge of economics. According to the Qur’an, Tawhid is the bedrock of complete and absolute knowledge. God is the fullness of knowledge that is embodied in the monotheistic law as the primalontology, meaning theory of being and existence. The world-system (a’lameen) is described and is spanned by the signs of monotheistic unity of knowledge in the good things of life, and its opposite in the bad things of life, by association and differentiation. These are both the Signs of God (ayath Allah). They together explain the natures of the paired and the differentiated universes. They provide the ways of moral construction by consciousness of unity of knowledge in the details of the conscious universe. Thus the nature of Islamic economics is axiomatically premised on the Islamic methodology of unity of knowledge functioning as an organic relationship of being and becoming. The result is the continuous nature of evolutionary learning emerging from inter-causality between the participatory and complementary good things of life. This presents the sure sign of paired unity of knowledge acting upon diversity of things. The world-system that is constructed by the Islamic episteme is a continuously simulated universe of unity of knowledge. The process of participatory and complementary organic relations never ceases. It simply closes in the Hereafter (Akhirah).

According to the Islamic episteme of unity of knowledge and the methodology applied to Islamic economics this book will prove that almost all orthodox and mainstream economic thought in its critical components is untenable in Islamic economics.Continuous evolutionary learning in unity of knowledge results in annulment ofsteady-state equilibriums, optimization models, formal functionals of maximization, and almost all of the economic postulates of rationality. Only evolutionary learning models abide. This theory is substantively explained throughout this book. Critique of axioms and assumptions of Islamic economics borrowed from mainstream economics. The use of Islamic methodology of unity of knowledge and the world-system causes almost all of the postulates of mainstream and orthodox economic theory to be ineffective in Islamic economics. They are replaced by the holistic, knowledge induced, evolutionary learning economic reasoning. Scarcity: The core mainstream orthodox economic axiom is scarcity of resources. This assumption is unacceptable in the Qur’anic worldview of abundance. This is true both in the absolute and relative meanings of resource scarcity. Scarcity does not exist in absolute terms by virtue of the principle of abundance in the Qur’an, except when resources are spoiled by human acts. Even these states of scarcity are recoverable ones, in a move towards reviving abundance. That is, moral reconstruction is always the goal and a possibility of the Islamic evolutionary worldview that increases resources continuously. Scarcity of resources does not exist relatively because in the state of mutual learning and endogenous role of ethics and technology in resources – learning as by complementarities in the pairing universe of the Qur’an – continuously increases resources. Resources are thus endogenized continuously by knowledge. Opportunity cost and marginal rate of substitution (marginalism): Because of the continuously endogenous effect of interaction, integration, and evolutionary learning as properties of the pairing – i.e. a complementary or participatory universe – there is no steady-state equilibrium point, and no optimal resource surface exists. In this way, neither the consumer indifference curve nor the production possibility curve takes shape and form. Objective functions of mainstream and orthodox economics: The non-existence of smoothly concave to the origin indifference curves and production isoquants, and a smooth convex production possibility curve, imply that the well-behaved types of utility function and production function in substitutes do not exist. Besides, substitutes cannot exist in continuous evolutionary learning by pairing the complementarities of goods, services, and productive inputs. Ethically speaking too, in the first order condition of relationship between goods and productive inputs the economic expansion path remains positively sloped. In the second order condition of allocation of resources it is possible that one of the goods and services receive differentially less than the other. But both gain along the positive economic expansion path. Relative prices of goods, services, and productive factors: The non-existence of smooth indifference curves, production isoquants, and production possibility surfaces cannot allow for well-determined relative prices.Market prices: In the absence of well-determined relative prices, consumer demand curves and market demand curves cannot exist. This happens also due to the absence of a simple price–quantity relationship for a specific good in demand and supply. Rather, other critical factors militate. Examples of such systemic interferences are dynamic preferences of choice, and endogenously related variations on other characteristics, e.g. continuously variable relative prices, incomes, and resources in the demand and supply functions (not curves). Marginal cost pricing: Marginal cost of variable factors cannot exist because of knowledge-induced learning cost curves and production functions. Besides, under the effect of increasing returns to scale the total cost curve, average cost curve, and the productivity curve of output remain continuously evolutionary and downward shifting with endogenous learning. Marginal productivities of productive factors: The absence of substitution and its replacement by pervasive complementarities between goods, services, and productive inputs cannot allow for marginal productivities of inputs, goods, and services. All other characteristics of non-existing steady-state equilibrium and optimal points cannot allow for marginal productivities to exist. Dynamic preferences and technological change: The evolutionary learning properties of utility curve (therefore consumer indifference curve) and production function (therefore production isoquants) are causally related with dynamic preferences and tastes. Consequently, all the properties of rational choice theory are annulled in the presence of evolutionary learning and pervasive organic complementarities caused by the Islamic axiom of unity of knowledge and its effect on the evolutionary learning (pairing) universe. The same kind of result is true of technology. Unlike the exogenous nature of technology in mainstream orthodox economic theory, technology is endogenously determined by continuous evolutionary learning. This phenomenon present in unity of knowledge affects resources, preferences, and choices by their mutual interaction and integration followed by continuous evolution. These substantive characteristics of the evolutionary learning in Islamic economics will be explained in detail in the course of this book. Economic rationality: This is a mainstream and orthodox economic axiom based on full-information and pre-ordering of given preferences as datum, so as to establish internal consistency of the neoclassical theory in problem solving. Yet in Islamic economic theory according to the Islamic methodological worldview, the postulate of full-information is untenable. The God-centric universe to which we are exposed by cognition and experience under evolutionary learning in unity of knowledge can never allow for discontinuity of knowledge (and thereby differentiation oppositely in the states of non-learning). Besides, dynamic preferences and endogenous technological change under the impact of evolutionary learning in unity of knowledge cannot be pre-ordered. Problem solving is done not by any assumption of consistency. Rather, the formal results and experiences of emergent economic and social models cause the need for addressing the problems at hand in pertinent ways. McCloskey (1985) promoted such an idea of addressing the nature of the state “as is”, rather than by theoretical prediction of economic theory. Optimization and equilibrium consequences of absence of economic rationality: The absence of economic rationality in the Islamic methodological worldview (of continuous evolutionary learning in unity of knowledge and unity of the knowledge-induced world-system) results in the complete absence of optimal states and steady-state equilibrium. While mainstream economics allow for exogenously induced changes in pareto-optimal steady-state equilibriums, the Islamic methodological worldview has only endogenous resource augmentation and changes of organization under the impact of unity of knowledge. The result then is a continuously endogenous change in resource allocations, technological change, preferences, and every other participatory variable. Consequently, all points on the economic surfaces are continuously perturbed by continuous change along non-optimal directions. Likewise, steady-state equilibrium points are changes into evolutionary learning points without convergence into attained states. Economic systems: The concepts of perfectly competitive markets (economy), imperfect competition, and monopolistic competition are all rendered untenable in the midst of the continuously evolutionary learning methodology of Islamic unity of knowledge. The reason for this is that the existence of optimality and steady-state equilibrium makes all genres of economic systems untenable. The attenuating cost and production functions do not preserve their smooth structures to all for calculus of differentiation. Only learning curves in cost and output exist, causing non-existence of the marginal cost curve and marginal productivity measures. This was pointed out above. From the Islamic perspective of continuous evolutionary learning with inter-causal participation and complementarities, the competition and methodological individualism concepts of self-interest cannot exist, as other-wise found in mainstream and orthodox economics. Behavioural perspectives: Morality and ethics remain exogenous to mainstream and orthodox economic theory. Knowledge borne out of the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge is centrally poised in morality and ethics. Thus for example, social justice and materiality – likewise, social capital and private capital ownership – are competing opposites for substitutes in mainstream eco- nomic theory of opportunity cost and scarcity of resources, (except as exogenous ethical impacts change behaviour, though not continuously). Such resource injection occurs exogenously by external imposition. On the other hand, in the case of the endogenous nature of knowledge, learning, and thereby the continuity of moral and ethical consciousness, social and economic choices are treated as complementary, participatory, and continuously evolutionary by learning in unity of knowledge. Islamic behavioural attributes are primarily based on the conscious- ness of Tawhid as Oneness of God and the unity of the monotheistic law. This in turn needs the extraction of ontological knowledge (theory of existence of being) from the Qur’an through the medium of the Sunnah (teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) and discourse among the learned ones in the Islamic nature of a purposive world-system. God, morality, ethics, and the world-system: The oneness of God as belief, which is projected in the episteme of unity of knowledge in God’s law, is the sole exogenous ontology of the Islamic world-system. All other variables in the Islamic world-system (a’lameen) are paired by endogenous interrelations, and circular causality of complementary relations (organic ‘pairing’ as in the Qur’an). Thus, unlike the exogenous nature of morality and ethics in mainstream and orthodox economic theory, and then too the notion of ethics emerging from the a posteriori world of mind–matter, Islamic methodology sets the emergence of ethics and morality in the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge; and points out the opposite of differentiation. The extraction of such morality and ethics proceeds from the Qur’an via the Sunnah in order to induce the paired causality of the world-system. The ontology of God’s law is then rendered to human discourse vis-à-vis the generality and details of diverse world-systems. These comprise the mind–matter dynamics, formalism, application, and context.The study of the moral and ethical induction of Islamic behaviour in economics and its representative inter-causal variables in the light of the Islamic methodology of unity of knowledge invokes mathematical methods mostly of the topological type. Topology is the only branch of advanced mathematics that studies relations between non-dimensional categories. Differential calculus is sparingly used in relation to knowledge variables. Time in the tuple – comprising knowledge, space, and time dimensions of functional categories – remains simply a recorder, not creator of anything. Knowledge remains the sole creator of events and change over the dimensions of knowledge, space, and time. Islamic economics (and its applications as studied in this work) can be defined as follows: Islamic economics is a scientific study of issues of economics in concert with all possible related fields that together interact to form an organic influence on economic issues and events and vice-versa.” Such an encompassing scientific worldview of Islamic economics is particularized in the meta-science of the principal and sole axiom of all Islamic socio-scientific studies – that of the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge in the good choices of life, which are choices derived from the purpose and objective of the Qur’anic law – maqasid al-shari’ah. The same law rejects the bad choices of life. The two categories of goods and services are deciphered from evolutionary learning according to the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge (Tawhid) and the induced economic world-system with its moral, ethical, and systemic congeries. This contrariety exists between the nature of mainstream economics and the Islamic methodology applied to the generality and particular of human cognition and experience on the other hand. An example of the particular is the emergence of the Qur’anic study of the economic issues of man and the universe. This book will formalize the Islamic methodological worldview in the rise of the corresponding economic and socio-scientific reasoning. Examples will be provided to illustrate this contrariety between these opposing worldviews of science, society, and the economic world-system; and of morality, ethics, and the world-system with its particularity in economics. An example here is of the problem of Islamic economics replicating from orthodox and mainstream economic learning. The example is shown by the acceptance of marginal rate of substitution or the opportunity cost idea in existing idea of Islamic economics. Such marginalized ideas lead to the replacement of social justice with economic efficiency as a substitute. Both of these are dear to epistemological reasoning. They are internalized in endogenous choice behaviour in social preferences and their technological implications. In the Islamic methodological worldview, morality and ethics are endogenously embedded in human inclinations by consciousness. They are not determined exogenously by costly external imposition, as by government and policing by the state. The Shari’ah (Islamic law) is naturally accepted by humankind for the common good and general well-being (maslaha) and purpose (maqasid al-shari’ah). The maqasid al-shari’ah is not coerced law, as the Qur’an declares (10:32–33): “Such is God your real Cherisher and Sustainer: Apart from Truth, what (remains) but error? Thus, is the Word of thy Lord proved true against those who rebel: Verily they will not believe.” For whom is this book appropriate? This book is meant for students entering a rigorous course of Islamic economics as science and with critical thinking. Indeed, Islamic economics studied in the light of its epistemological foundations and as a scientific discipline should only be taken up after the student has completed at least an introductory economics course, or better yet, has studied economics at an intermediate level. Indeed, the study of economics in the light of its epistemological issues is taught to International baccalaureate students as a general mandatory course. The internet version of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Theory of Knowledge course states the significance of the theory of knowledge: “Theory of knowledge … asks students to reflect on the nature of knowledge, and on how we know what we claim to know. Theory of Knowledge is part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) core and is mandatory for all students.” For a more detailed introduction to the theme of epistemology as scientific methodology, please see Martin (2010). Theory of Knowledge aims to make students aware of the interpretative nature of knowledge, including personal ideological biases – whether these biases are retained, revised or rejected. It offers the students and their teachers an opportunity to: reflect critically on diverse ways of knowing and on areas of knowledge consider the role and nature of knowledge in their own culture, in the cultures of others and in the wider world. In addition, Theory of Knowledge prompts students to: be aware of themselves as thinkers, encouraging them to become more acquainted with the complexity of knowledge recognize the need to act responsibly in an increasingly interconnected but uncertain world.

Theory of Knowledge also provides coherence for the student, by linking academic subject areas as well as transcending them. It therefore demonstrates the ways in which the student can apply their knowledge with greater awareness and credibility.