Expanding the Frontiers of Economics: Some Insights from the Qur’anic Revelation

Year 2019, Volume: 6 Issue: 1, 1 - 34, 15.02.2019

Muhammad Akram Khan

Abstract

The primary sources of economics are human thinking and observation through sense-perception. Economics does not accept any super-sensory source as a valid field of enquiry. However, divine revelation granted to
Prophets by God, is a source of knowledge that deals with wide-ranging issues including the economic problem. The
main argument of the paper is that by integrating human understanding of the divine revelation with conventional
economics, existing frontiers of the subject can be expanded. Although the divine revelation is found in the basic
texts of all revealed religions, yet the present paper deals with the Islamic primary sources (the Qur’an2
and the
hadith3
) only. The paper enumerates, by way of example, six problem areas where the Qur’anic revelation can give
a lead. These areas are: inequality, human happiness and unhappiness, economic balance, philanthropy, financial
crises and stock exchange instability, and waste in human society. However, such a conclusion would firstly require
overcoming prejudice against religion and non-conventional fields of enquiry.

Keywords

Revelation and Economics; Religion and Social science; Qur’an on Distribution of Income and Wealth; Qur’an on Happiness; Economic Equilibrium; Financial Crises; Foreign Exchange and Stock Exchange Instability; Consumer Behaviour in Islam

References

• Referans1
• Referans2
• Referans3