Mufti Mohammad Taqi Usmani

Our Socio-Economic Order (eBook, ePUB)

Übersetzer: Rizwani, Shakir

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Authentic Islamic Economics in Theory and Practice



Our Socio-Economic Order by Mufti Mohammad Taqi Usmani represents an essential contribution to Islamic economic thought, offering both systematic critique of dominant modern economic systems and comprehensive articulation of authentic Islamic alternatives. Originally composed as a series of scholarly essays addressing Pakistan's post-independence economic challenges, this work has endured as a foundational reference for understanding how Qurʾanic teachings, prophetic guidance, and Islamic jurisprudence provide practical solutions to persistent problems of wealth distribution, social justice, and economic development.



The Crisis of Modern Economics



The work begins by diagnosing the fundamental failures afflicting contemporary economic systems. Mufti Usmani demonstrates that capitalism, despite its productivity and technological advancement, systematically concentrates wealth through four pillars of exploitation: interest (riba), speculation, gambling, and hoarding. These mechanisms enable capitalists to accumulate national wealth while assuming no risk of loss, leaving laborers and consumers increasingly impoverished despite industrial progress. The analysis reveals how monopolistic practices, protected by government policies favoring large industrialists, create artificial scarcities and manipulate prices, reducing the majority to economic servitude.



The work then turns to socialism, examining its claims to liberate workers from capitalist exploitation. Mufti Usmani demonstrates that socialism merely replaces multiple individual capitalists with a single, more powerful state monopoly. Rather than workers genuinely owning factories and farms, a small bureaucratic elite controls all means of production, determining wages, prices, and working conditions without meaningful worker participation. The promised workers' government proves illusory; actual workers lack rights to organize, strike, or protest, making their condition potentially worse than under capitalism, where such liberties, however constrained, still exist.



Islamic Economic Foundations



Having demonstrated both capitalism's and socialism's failures, Mufti Usmani systematically presents Islamic economic principles. The foundation is theological: Allah alone possesses absolute ownership of all wealth, and humans function as trustees bound by divine commands in their economic activities. This framework rejects capitalism's notion of unlimited private ownership and socialism's denial of private property, instead establishing that humans may own wealth through legitimate means but must deploy it according to Shariʿah constraints that prevent exploitation and ensure circulation of wealth.



Islam prohibits the four mechanisms through which capitalism concentrates wealth. The prohibition of interest (riba) ensures that capital providers share risk with entrepreneurs rather than extracting guaranteed returns regardless of business outcomes. Banning speculation prevents artificial price manipulation and the concentration of profits in speculators' hands at consumers' expense. Prohibiting gambling eliminates mechanisms whereby the poor's money flows to wealthy individuals through games of chance masquerading as investment or insurance. Outlawing hoarding prevents artificial scarcities that enable price gouging during times of need.



Beyond prohibiting exploitative practices, Islam mandates redistributive mechanisms ensuring wealth circulation. Zakat, the annual levy on accumulated wealth, prevents hoarding and transfers resources to eight specified categories of recipients. ʿUshr, the agricultural tax, ensures that land productivity benefits broader society rather than solely landowners. Islamic inheritance laws, by mandating distribution among multiple heirs rather than primogeniture, prevent land and capital concentration across generations. Maintenance obligations create legal claims whereby relatives, orphans, and others possess enforceable rights to support from those with means.



Profit-Sharing as the Alternative to Interest



The work provides detailed analysis of how profit-sharing partnerships (mu?arabah and musharakah) can replace interest-based financing. In these arrangements, capital providers and entrepreneurs share both profits and losses proportionally. This alignment of interests produces several beneficial effects: capital flows to genuinely productive enterprises rather than merely profitable ones; entrepreneurial talent receives support regardless of existing wealth; risk is distributed equitably; and wealth circulates broadly rather than concentrating in lenders' hands through guaranteed returns.



Mufti Usmani addresses practical objections, demonstrating that Islamic banking has historical precedentMuslim societies operated successfully on these principles for centuriesand contemporary viability, as evidenced by the growing global Islamic finance industry. He includes detailed responses to questions about implementing interest-free banking, covering deposit accounts, business financing, insurance, and provident funds, showing how each can function according to Shariʿah principles.



Agricultural Reform and Feudal Oppression



Significant attention addresses agricultural sector injustices, particularly relevant to societies where feudal landholding patterns persist. The author demonstrates how large landholdings contradict Islamic inheritance laws, which should naturally divide estates among multiple heirs. He proposes strict enforcement of inheritance laws, elimination of interest-based land mortgages that enable landlords to accumulate holdings, and investigation of lands acquired through illegitimate means, with redistribution to rightful owners or landless peasants.



The work addresses crop-sharing arrangements (batai), showing how exploitative conditions imposed on peasants violate Islamic principles of contractual justice. Proposals include fixing minimum peasant shares, prohibiting forced labor conditions, establishing accessible dispute resolution mechanisms, and creating cooperative marketing systems that bypass exploitative middlemen. These reforms aim not at wholesale nationalization but at ensuring justice within relationships between landowners and cultivators.



The Ulema Consensus



A remarkable feature is analysis of the 22-Point Economic Plan developed jointly by 118 ʿulamaʾ representing all major Islamic schools of thought. This unprecedented consensus demonstrates that scholarly differences regarding ritual matters do not extend to economic principles. All agreed on prohibiting interest, eliminating speculation, breaking up monopolies, ensuring equitable wages for labor, addressing feudal oppression of peasants, and implementing Islamic redistributive mechanisms. This consensus refutes claims that Islamic economics represents modern innovation rather than authentic Islamic teaching.



Critique of Islamic Socialism



Mufti Usmani systematically refutes attempts to reconcile Islamic economics with socialist ideology. He demonstrates that slogans like Islamic socialism are conceptual contradictions. Islam's concern for social justice does not validate socialist nationalization programs; rather, Islam protects legitimately acquired private property while mandating specific redistributive mechanisms and prohibiting exploitative practices. Nationalization often violates Islamic principles by seizing lawfully acquired property, and historical experience shows it typically benefits bureaucratic elites rather than common people.



Spiritual and Social Dimensions



Throughout, the work emphasizes that economic reform cannot succeed without broader Islamic revival. The early Muslim community's extraordinary achievements in economic justice stemmed from profound faith motivating voluntary sacrifice for the common good. Contemporary reform requires educational transformation, rejection of Western consumerism, simplified lifestyles, effective judicial systems accessible to the poor, andfundamentallyspiritual reformation grounded in God-consciousness (taqwa) and accountability before Allah.



Implementation Challenges and Government Critique



The latter chapters track Pakistan's efforts to implement Islamic banking, offering both encouragement and frank critique. Mufti Usmani analyzes specific schemes introduced by various governments, demonstrating when superficial name changes masquerade as genuine reform. His analysis of mark-up arrangements, profit-and-loss sharing accounts, and Islamic savings schemes reveals how technical Shariʿah compliance can be achieved without addressing the fundamental economic justice concerns that motivated prohibiting interest. These chapters model engaged scholarship, maintaining principle while acknowledging practical constraints, encouraging genuine progress while refusing to validate cosmetic changes.



Contemporary Relevance



Though written addressing Pakistan's challenges, the principles and analyses remain directly applicable to Muslim-majority nations worldwide and Muslim communities in non-Muslim-majority contexts. The work serves scholars researching Islamic economics, policymakers seeking to implement Shariʿah-compliant systems, Islamic finance professionals requiring authoritative guidance, and serious general readers seeking authentic understanding of how Islam addresses humanity's perennial struggle to balance individual enterprise with social welfare.



Our Socio-Economic Order combines rigorous jurisprudential analysis with practical policy expertise and prophetic vision. It demonstrates that Islam offers neither capitalism's exploitative individualism nor socialism's oppressive collectivism, but a divinely revealed middle path that protects legitimate private property, prohibits exploitation, mandates wealth circulation, and grounds economic activity in consciousness of divine accountability. For anyone serious about understanding and implementing economic justice according to Islam, this work remains indispensable.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Prophetic Economics
• Seitenzahl: 144
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Dezember 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9789366082509
• Artikelnr.: 76016745

Autorenporträt

Mufti Mohammad Taqi Usmani stands as one of the most authoritative and influential Islamic scholars of the modern era, combining deep traditional learning with sophisticated engagement with contemporary challenges. Born on October 5, 1943, in Deoband, India, he received rigorous training in classical Islamic sciences and modern disciplines, uniquely positioning him to address the intersection of Shariʿah principles with complex modern systems.



After completing his studies at Dar al-ʿUlum Karachi under his father, the renowned Grand Mufti Muhammad Shafi, he pursued advanced studies in Arabic literature and earned a law degree, subsequently practicing as an advocate before Pakistan's High Court. His legal career culminated in appointment to the Shariʿah Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (19822002), where he adjudicated cases involving the compatibility of Pakistani laws with Islamic principles.



Mufti Usmani's scholarly contributions span over 150 books in Urdu, Arabic, and English, covering jurisprudence (fiqh), Qurʾanic exegesis (tafsir), hadith sciences, Islamic spirituality (ta?awwuf), and contemporary issues. His works on Islamic economics and finance have provided core intellectual foundations for the global Islamic finance industry. He has chaired the Shariʿah boards of numerous Islamic financial institutions worldwide and served as chairman of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.



Beyond academic contributions, Mufti Usmani founded several educational institutions and regularly teaches advanced jurisprudence at Dar al-ʿUlum Karachi. His classes attract students from across the Muslim world seeking traditional Islamic learning integrated with contemporary relevance. He has lectured extensively on five continents, addressing both Muslim and Western audiences on Islam's perspective regarding contemporary economic, social, and ethical questions.



His approach balances adherence to classical Islamic legal methodology with recognition of contemporary realities, neither compromising fundamental principles nor ignoring practical necessities. This methodology appears prominently in Our Socio-Economic Order, where he critiques both capitalism and socialism while presenting Islamic alternatives grounded in Qurʾan, Sunnah, and centuries of jurisprudential development. His work demonstrates that authentic Islam offers practical solutions to economic injustice without importing alien ideologies.



Mufti Usmani's influence extends beyond scholarship to policy impact. His recommendations have shaped Islamic banking regulations in multiple countries, and his Shariʿah opinions are sought by governments, central banks, and international financial institutions. His combination of traditional ʿulamaʾ credentials, modern legal expertise, and practical wisdom makes him an unparalleled voice on how Islamic teachings address humanity's struggles with economic justice, social welfare, and ethical governance.