Abstract
Islamic economics, as part of the Islamic body of knowledge, has emerged as a new social science discipline that has gained currency and recognition in various institutions of higher learning in the contemporary Muslim world. Different sources of Islamic knowledge have significantly contributed to shape its evolution and development. The Islamic legal maxims, however, do not seem to have received much attention in terms of their contextualization in the present economic thinking. Using the content analysis approach, this article examines the relevance of qawā‘id al-fiqhiyyah, placing emphasis on the five normative maxims and some of their variants, to the understanding of Islamic economics. The aim is to assess their relevance to Islamic economic life and their contextualization within time and space. It was found that qawā‘id al-fiqhiyyah significantly contributes to the understanding of Islamic economics as a discipline in the Islamic tertiary educational pursuits. They help to understand certain economic theories from the Islamic ethical perspective. Therefore, it is concluded that if Muslim social scientists, especially, Muslim economists, embrace and pursue this branch of fiqh with an utmost concern and commitment, it would facilitate a better appreciation of economic theories from the Islamic perspective.
Highlights
Islamic economics has emerged as an alternative to the conventional economics because it seeks to observe and explain, from the perspective of Islam, the universal reality as far as humankind’s socio-economic behavior is concerned
The main objective was to appreciate the relevance of these principles in the contemporary conceptualization or Islamization of economic knowledge, known as Islamic economics, in the Muslim world
It attempts to weigh the value of Islamic jurisprudence in the contemporary economic thought in general
Summary
Islamic economics has emerged as an alternative to the conventional economics because it seeks to observe and explain, from the perspective of Islam, the universal reality as far as humankind’s socio-economic behavior is concerned. In contributing to this rigorous study, this article puts the five major legal maxims (i.e., qawā‘id al-fiqhiyyah al-kubrā) into economic perspective by examining how they could facilitate the understanding of Islamic economics, or generally, human economic behavior from the Sharī‘ah perspective.
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