Islamization of Knowledge in Economics: Issues and Agenda

This paper discusses three issues - worldview differences, revelation-reason relationship, and the question of methodology - important for Islamizing knowledge in the field of economics and presents also the outlines of an agenda for action. Western worldview separates the mundane from the spiritual aspect of human existence while Islam keeps the two unified. This makes the goals, scope, and principles of secular economics in many ways different from those of Islam in the area Reason alone is the basis of theoretical formulations in secular economics. Islam too encourages people to use intellect for analyzing observations and draw inferences to discover the truth but within the confines of the Sha’riah : reason is not allowed to violate revelation.Evidently, procedures priorities, and prescriptions, can rarely be the same in the Islamic as in secular economics. Methodology of secular economics essentially is a posterior development. It has invariably sought to rationalize what economists have actually been doing over the centuries so as to fortify the evolving doctrine of free enterprize.In contrast, for Islamic economics the doctrine was already contained in the revelation. To discover- not to invent-has been and remains the task of methodology in Islamic economics. Unlike the secular dispensation, the glide here is from methodology to economics, not vice versa. Agenda outlines focus on considerations in preparing reading materials , and in developing curriculaWorld view Reason versus revelation doctrine teaching economics