(IFER)
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Prof Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi
Seventh International Conference on Islamic Economics, Islamic Economics Research Center, KAAU, Jeddah, April 1-3,2008
Dr Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi is an internationally renowned name in Islamic economics. Recipient of several awards such as theKing Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies in 1982, American Finance House Award in 1993, Award for Life-long Contributions to Islamic Insurance and Banking, Takaful Forum, New York in 2000 and decades of teaching experience at the renowned institutions of King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia and Aligarh Muslim University, India and holder of several editorial and advisery positions, Dr Siddiqi has contributed immensly to the development and understanding of Islamic finance for the last four decades. IFER wishes to thank Dr Siddiqi for allowing us to publish some of his works on our website for the benefit of our readers.
This paper emphasizes six factors as main obstacles to
progress in research in Islamic Economics. They are: Lack of proper historical
studies; Lack of relevant empirical studies; Lack of adequate institutional
support; Non-observance of ethical norms relating to research and publications;
Poor vision of Islamic society and economy that fails to distinguish between
the essential and the peripheral, and, last but not the least; Failure
to distinguish between the divine and the human in the Islamic heritage.
In what follows we discuss each one of these, with the existing Islamic
economics literature in mind. We then suggest possible ways of removing
these obstacles to further progress in Islamic economics research. wa
billah al-tawfiq
INTRODUCTION
Before we launch our enquiry it is appropriate to ask
ourselves the question: Why are we doing it? All is not well with Islamic
economic research. The enthusiasm of the early decades has gone. The surge
in enrolment in Islamic economics courses, especially at the post- graduate
level, observed during the eighties of the last century, has all but subsided.
In its place we have kids looking for appropriate qualifications in “Islamic
Finance”, and sprouting of institutions offering such courses “on
line,” to meet the growing needs of the ‘industry’.
Nothing bad. No regrets. The question is, what about the grand idea of
providing an alternative to capitalism and socialism, that is informed
by moral purpose and inspired by a spiritual vision. Has it yielded to
a desire to join the flock at its own terms? I suspect it is so, and that
this is rooted, among other things, in the change of times. In the sixties
and seventies of twentieth century the world of Islam was abuzz with all
things Islamic: education, society and state. Currently, in the first
decade if the twenty-first century, there is a collapse of grand agendas
leaving a pathetic scenario in which everything is in a flux: education,
society, state. As I proceed to discus the micro-causes of decline in
Islamic economic research, I beseech you not to lose sight of the macro-
framework in which the future would unfold it self. The grand Islamic
agenda launched in the early decades of twentieth century has been pushed
back due to its own shortcomings.
Lack of a sense of History
Islamic economics, insofar as its normative aspect is
concerned, is based on divine guidance revealed in the seventh century
Arabia to a desert people who later carried it to the fertile valleys
in the north, west and east, and then across the mountains and beyond
the oceans. People of all hues and colors, speaking different languages,
and cherishing different traditions rooted in each people’s unique
past, tried to live that guidance. Trying to do the same in the twenty-first
century in a globalising world, we need to know everything about these
trials before we can draw a plan of action.
That is where we failed. The source of most of the economics projected
as Islamic has been fiqh, which is largely based on the historical experiences
of the first four centuries, mostly in what we now call the Middle East
and North Africa. Historical experiences over the next thousand years,
especially those in India and South-East Asia, Turkey and Iran have neither
been studied properly nor allowed full impact on fiqh. Among the very
few attempts to sift through Islamic history for knowing more about such
institutions and practices as waqf, zakat, mudaraba, suftajah, and such
concepts as israf, infaq, etc.[1], the sources covered are all in Arabic
and from one particular region. This has deprived us of the variety of
interpretation and diversity of experience in living according to Quran
and Sunnah. Economic history of Muslim peoples is a very thinly researched
area, and so is the economic thought of Muslims. This can hardly do, as
living according to norms and concepts handed down centuries ago is a
challenging task, especially in economic affairs. It would be some help
to know how Muslims responded to technological changes, expanding markets
and new sources of energy over the centuries. As it stands, most of Islamic
economic literature treated Islamic norms and concepts relevant for man’s
economic life to be above time and place, unaffected by increasing populations,
urbanization, rising incomes, increasing trade and commerce, innovative
ways of handling money and foreign exchange and faster means of transport
and communication. That is unacceptable as even during the first few centuries
of Islam, which did not witness any revolutionary change in sources of
energy or technology, we have some variety of interpretation and diversity
of practice. What we need is a closer look at what was going on in different
regions at different times. That requires sifting through all available
historical records, supplementing these by a study of stories (qisas,
poetry and travelogues, court records, etc. This has to be done for all
regions under Muslims, covering all the languages spoken by them and through
all the 15 centuries that have passed between now and the days of divine
revelation.
Let us have it straight, history, even of Muslim peoples,
is not a source of guidance for us. Divine guidance inheres only in Quran
and Sunnanh of the Prophet, peace be upon him. We invoke history for the
purpose Quran has recommended it to us: as ibar .[2] There are lessons
to be learnt, warnings to be heeded. We run a great risk in ignoring history.
Knowledge of history may save us from repeating mistakes and encourage
us onto following into footsteps of those who succeeded.
A greater risk inheres in focusing on only part of Islamic history and
ignoring the rest. This elevates a particular history to a status it cannot
claim and does not deserve. By committing this mistake we run the risk
of alienating parts of humanity for no fault of theirs.’
Being Realistic: Feel of the Ground under your Feet
We know very little about contemporary Muslim economic behavior. There
is lot of work on what Muslims should be doing as consumers, producers,
employers, traders and managers. But what they actually do, and whether
it is any different from what others are doing in similar situations,
we hardly ever investigated. The same applies to our distinctive institutions
like awqaf, zakat funds, even Islamic financial institutions. The question:
What to do if and when a Muslim behaves differently from the way he or
she should behave cannot be addressed without knowing what actual Muslim
behavior is. Similarly we need to know whether our institutions are actually
playing the role claimed for them in Islamic economic literature. Lack
of adequate attention to finding out the actual state of Muslim individuals
and institutions, needs some explanation. It will be too much to assume
that we do not care, that all we care about is announcing what the desired
model is. This cannot be true as the whole thing about Islamic economics
is an offshoot of the movement towards Islamic living that the second
and third decades of the last century witnessed. In other words Islamic
Economics is not an academic exercise (no economics ever was). It is an
offshoot of the Islamic Movement. So it must be caring about change, change
from the current behavior and institutional structures to those in accordance
with Islamic norms. But can we do so without first knowing what the state
of Muslim individual and of Muslim institutions is, and why?
We claim a Muslim would behave ethically. That there are higher spiritual
horizons he or she is looking at in the conduct of business. But how far
they do so, and what explains the discrepancy? Does the fault always lie
with human perfidy? Or, someone may have overshot in defining the norms
and developing the concepts. There is also the problem that inheres is
comparing today’s Muslims with the idealized image of Muslims during
the days of the Prophet and the caliphs. The present we know and observe,
but the past is partly a mental construct. The reports that form the basis
for that construction are neither exhaustive nor all authentic. But their
romantic spell is capable of clouding judgment and suppressing rational
evaluation.
I suspect that is what happened, especially with regard to the period
immediately following the Prophet. It might have been found to be prudent
to underplay departures from Islamic norms as perceived. But that dilutes
the didactic value of history as honest recording of facts.
A final verdict must await fresh research. Meanwhile it will do no harm
to know the current state of affairs thoroughly. That needs being done
with regards to individual behavior in all aspects relevant to economics.
It needs being done for all regions and ethnic groups in matters where
geography may matter. For comparison we need studies of non-Muslim behavior
too, as we want to know impact of Islam, if any. The same has to be done
about institutions like family, bazaar, and inter-Islamic trade as well
as uniquely Muslim institutions like inheritance, the Hajj ,waqf and zakat
.
If there is one lesson to be learnt from the collapse of the socialist
agenda and demise of Soviet Russia during the short span of less than
a century, it is that one must feel the ground underneath one’s
feet before launching on a grand march to the ideal. Before one dreams
of successes to come, there may be lessons to learn from past and current
failures. This is especially true of priorities. What is to be done incase
the peoples’ own concerns are widely different from priorities in
the agenda of the reformers? Shall the reformers readjust to ground realities
or persist with their own sequencing?
Consider the current focus of Islamic economists on Islamic finance and
dearth of Islamic economic literature on poverty removal, inequality and
development. Among the billion plus Muslims of the world, how many are
bothered about banking and finance? How many of the over six billion inhabiting
the planet care about Islamic finance, considering the fact that Islamic
economics is for all?
Research Needs Money
Modern research needs lots of resources. Whether it is historical studies of the kind indicated above or empirical studies of the type we were talking about in the previous paragraphs, they both require large teams making sustained efforts over long periods of time. Their findings have no industrial application, so the market is not going to finance them. The costs of these public goods have to be borne by the Muslim society. If the record of the last forty years is an indicator (in which very few Muslim governments assigned any resources for these tasks, and the assignments have been too meager to deserve any mention), Muslim governments would not be funding the type of fundamental researches outlined above. Most of the contemporary regimes in the Islamic world that have resources to spare are happy with the status quo. Whatever the perceived tension between that status quo and the popular construct of Islamic history, it is well contained and poses no threat to the status quo. But the same cannot be true about the outcome of new probes into the past with a new set of questions in mind.
Most of the research output in Islamic economics so far owes itself to private charity and/or dedication of the researchers themselves. Happily the financial resources of the private sector are destined to grow with the passage of time. More and more wealth is likely to be created by human ingenuity and the relative share of scarce resources such as petroleum is destined to decline. While one should continue pressurizing governments, especially those in democratic countries, for allocating funds for historical and empirical research, current hope lies in persuading the voluntary sector to change its priorities from doing more of the same to exploring new directions. One ground for persuasion is the failure of the old to inspire fresh positive thinking and produce new agenda for reconstruction of the ummah. As things stand now, all new energy of Islamic activists seems to be destined for destroying what is perceived to be un-Islamic, with no clear vision of what to replace it with. It is precisely for recovering such a vision that fresh fundamental research in the past and a new understanding of the present is needed. Those who care for the destiny of the ummah and that of humanity, and there are many, would be willing to open their purses without expecting any material returns to themselves. The important thing is to impress on our people that the stakes are very high. Unless the ummah is given a new direction that is credibly rooted in the past, convincingly realistic regarding the present and reasonably confident about building a better future, an avalanche of crises may sweep away many a promising career.
Resources, to the extent available, need to be spent judiciously.
It is not advisable to house all research under one roof or in one country,
even in one region. It must also be multi lingual. Universities, autonomous
institutes and associations like the International Association for Islamic
Economics should all partake in this enterprise. A role awaits the publishing
industry too, by way of patronizing young scholars and providing them
with initial impetus. No less important is need for the media, including
the mimbar, to orchestrate the new priorities so they are accepted by
the ummah as a whole
Rights Protection
Plagiarism is an endemic disease afflicting scholarship.
But does it pose a threat to proper development of Islamic economic scholarship?
Frankly speaking, I don’t know. There are indicators, however that
it is assuming bothersome proportions. There have been complaints on ibf
net, the popular Islamic economic discussion forum in English. Some senior
teachers and authors have also told me the same about research and publications
in the Arabic language.
It will take time and efforts to root out the evil. Teachers and publishers
have special responsibility, but peer review and vigilance must also play
its role more effectively. But will they? We have some notions about knowledge
being for the benefit of all, any proprietary claims to new ideas being
essentially bad, un-Islamic. Besides being baseless in law and morality,
such notions totally ignore the way new facts are discovered, fresh ideas
originate, and new knowledge germinates and flourishes in a society. Original
research in modern times demands life-long dedication. Each small brick
laid could be the basis on which further edifice may rest. Unless it is
secured in the name of the originator, and brings him or her any recognition
and/or rewards society thinks fit for awarding, there would be no incentive
for follow up work. It is in society’s interest to protect the rights
of researchers, authors and publishers from plagiarism and piracy so that
the flow of scientific research continues unabated. This social protection
does not depend on law alone. More than legal provisions, it needs, first
of all, to be clearly recognized as the norm. No one, neither a student
nor an author has a right to lift even a sentence or two from any author’s
work and present it as his or her own, without reference to the source
and proper acknowledgement.
Cheating in scholarship is worse than robbing someone of material possessions.
Plagiarism, unlike robbery, harms society much more than it hurts the
victim. Taking it lightly is like allowing quakes to wear the mantle of
physicians. The intellectual health of a society that fails to prevent
it will be at grave risk.
The Essential and the Peripheral
Islam is for all times and all places, and so are its
teachings that are relevant for the economic life of man. It was, however,
revealed in seventh century Arabia. The time and place in which the Prophet,
peace be upon him, gave Islam’s first concrete exemplification was
bound to have its stamp on that example. But what was local and specific
to those times cannot form part of the universal and eternal Islam. We
who are engaged in living Islamically in the twenty-first century in a
globalising world have the responsibility of sifting the eternal and the
universal for implementation now and here, implementation that is bound
to bear the stamp of a changed locale in a changed time. While all Muslims
share this responsibility, and have to partake in its discharge, each
according to his or her capacity, Muslim economists and social scientists
have special responsibility. Having a better understanding of the changes
that have occurred since the early centuries of Islam, and the features
that distinguish modern living conditions from living in those times,
they can identify the eternal and the universal, fit for adaptation and
implementation.
The record of Islamic economic research so far has not been very promising.
Islamic economists hardly did any better than those without any learning
of social dynamics, specializing only in traditional Islamic sciences
developed more than a thousand years ago. Hopes of getting better results
by bringing the two expertise together by housing them in the same institution
and/or seating them around the same conference table have not been very
encouraging.[3] The result is a kind of intellectual paralysis. What is
worse is the exploitation of this situation by a section of the market
to offer conventional goods in superficial Islamic wrappings in the name
of Islam.
It will take going into very many details fully to substantiate the above.
I do not think it is necessary, even proper, to attempt doing that in
this paper. I wish the task of substantiating (or refuting!) the point
made above is taken up by someone with more time and energy than available
to this writer. But I cannot miss this opportunity of giving at least
one example, that of insurance. The Islamic economic literature on insurance
during the last half- century, and the corresponding practice in the name
of Takaful and Islamic insurance, exemplifies the problem, the predicament
and the dangers I have indicated in the previous paragraph.[4]
In a world in which even such problems created by rapid technological
change as job insecurity and increasing inequality in the distribution
of income, are sought to be tackled by insurance[5], we are still discussing
whether the idea of insurance itself is valid. Scholars would generally
regard as alien, and therefore unacceptable, the idea of random events
being subject to regularities that could be discovered, given a mathematical
formulation and used for insuring against risk. Yet the same scholars
would easily accept the fiction of tabarru’(donation) to validate
thinly wrapped conventional insurance.[6]
I do not want to debunk the various Islamic insurance products available
in the market. Let a hundred flowers bloom. What I am lamenting is a failure
to accept anything that does not fit in the old mould despite its obvious
wisdom. In trying to abide by derived rules we have distanced ourselves
from the very source of rules. We have already noted the anomaly of Islamic
economic research relegating poverty removal to the backburner and bringing
investing rich peoples’ surpluses for making them richer to the
fore. That is how the essence is overwhelmed by the peripheral.
The remedy lies in focusing on the vision of a Muslim and that of an Islamic
society before we attend to rules of conduct and ways and means for their
implementation. The so-called economic rules of individual conduct and
social policy, most of them lifted from secondary sources, blur our vision
of the total picture because we are living in a different time and place.
The better method is to perceive and conceptualize the totality from out
of the primary sources, the Quran and the Sunnah. All the rest should
follow and not lead, insofar as Islamic economic research is concerned.
The Human Element in the Islamic Heritage
This brings me to the last point: The need to distinguish what is human
from what is divine in our Islamic heritage. The Prophet, peace be upon
him, brought the word of God and explained it by living it and guiding
a whole generation of men and women organize their lives, including their
economic affairs, in accordance with divine guidance. The word of God
is preserved in its originality, un-adulterated by word of man. But the
same is not true of anything else. As the Prophet leaves the scene and
his companions are left to fend for themselves, the problem gets more
complicated. It is no longer a matter merely of authenticity of reports.
We are now dealing with men like us, without any direct link with divinity.
Facing new challenges, they no longer had the Prophet to ask how to meet
them. All they had is the Quran and what they had heard from the Prophet
or, seen him doing in different situations. Building on that, they had
to decide for themselves, and they did. Times moved on. The second and
third centuries of Islam brought new challenges and explored new solutions.
It is during these times that most of the recorded Islamic heritage took
shape. Besides the vast literature on what is characterized as Islamic
sciences the age produced a rich harvest of living traditions, arts and
culture. Supplemented by the intellectual contributions in the following
centuries, that is the heritage we cherish and seek inspiration from in
our own enterprise of living an Islamic life in this globalized world
of the twenty-first century. So far so good.
In exercising ones own judgment in the enterprise of Islamic living, it
is good to have so much to fall back on. It is a great help. But one should
not be constrained by the sayings and doings of other humans. The divine
is binding but the human is not. Additional constraints thwart fresh thinking
and innovation. Sacralization of the non-sacred has been a great source
of degeneration in human history. It is one thing to treat history as
help and inspiration. It is very different when we try to recreate it
in a changed world, and that too in economic affairs. History, even Islamic
history, is not sacred. We run a great risk by giving it that status.
Well said, but has it any relevance to the subject in hand? I think it
has. You need only a cursory glance at the Islamic economic literature
on taxation, fiscal policy, social welfare and development financing to
conclude that the writer is focused on some script, rarely looking up
to gauge the reality faced in modern living. Most writers on Islamic Public
Finance[7] are writing history, telling us how to recreate it. The divine
in our heritage does not offer such script, so, how come? That is the
problem.
The problem is not confined to archaic treatment of novel modern situations
and issues. Our fixation with a particular history not only alienates
us from current reality, it also isolates us from the rest of humanity.
It reinforces Muslims’ sense of being different from others to undue
proportions, making frank, sincere outreaching and interaction almost
impossible. The normal process of learning from others’ experiences
and contributions is replaced by, at the least, indifference and apathy,
and often by suspicion and hostility. No wonder we get the same in response.
This situation has to be rectified before it goes out of hand. There is
no better area for making a beginning than economics. I say this because
the need to focus on the divine in human heritage and treat the human
only as efforts in implementation from which lessons can be drawn is most
obvious in economic matters. It is the economic affairs of man that bear
the brunt of technological change and are often harbingers of change in
other aspects of life. It is in economics more than in other areas that
our focus should be on Maqasid al-Shriah [8](the objectives of Islamic
Law) rather than what is commonly perceived as Law. Islamic economic research,
unbound from the chains that human elements in Islamic heritage have put
around it, can then bring Muslim intellectuals out of their shell into
the company of other intellectuals for exploring ways and means of delivering
humanity from the unprecedented predicament it finds itself in.
Regaining Self Confidence
A shrinking from independent thinking and total reliance on Islamic heritage
came to Muslims after the first five hundred years of their history gradually
and due to many factors. First it was to save Islamic law from becoming
a hand-maid of petty rulers in a world of Islam torn asunder by sectarian
squabbles and internecine wars. Then came the colonial era and the onslaught
of Christian missionaries in the wake of western armies. The new emperors
produced their own courtiers from out of greedy elite among the natives.
Islamic thought was defended from inroads by foreigners and tampering
by motivated insiders by declaring it self sufficient and immune to change.
All that is history. Things have been changing after the coming of Muslim
peoples from out of the yoke of colonialism during the last century. The
intellectual scene of the ummah is humming with activity, the emergence
of Islamic economics being one of its fruits. But it takes time. There
is no justification for despondency. Nevertheless speed matters in this
age of rapid change. The obstacles to progress in Islamic economic research
are all removable. We can do that. Better begin by diverting existing
resources to priority areas of research. The next step should be to revamp
the existing institutions involved in Islamic economic research by giving
them greater autonomy, making them more democratic and providing them
with more resources. Let the newly rich among Muslims in India, China
and South East Asia realize their potential and cast away the image of
dependence on largesse from the oil-rich for funding their universities
and research institutions. We need a strong center for research in Islamic
economics located in the west. This will serve the dual purpose of benefiting
from the well-established research traditions in the west and affording
western scholars interested in the area, and they are an increasing lot,
a closer look at the ideas.
The toughest nut to crack are the two last mentioned obstacles, failure
to prioritize so that the essence prevails over the form and detaching
the human accretions from the eternal and universal divine guidance. Two
sides of the same coin, they are so well entrenched in traditional Islamic
scholarship that even their mention is bound to raise eyebrows. Yet there
would be no breakthrough without removing these obstacles. They are borne
of precautionary defensive mechanisms created during the last one thousand
years to protect Islam from corruption by the un-scrupulous Muslim autocrats,
foreigners and their lackeys. Even after two hundred years of Islamic
revivalist movements, many calls to ijtihad and fresh thinking, and hundreds
of conferences and seminars to revive creativity among Muslim intellectuals,
fear of the unknown makes the commonality of Muslims and their mentors
stay close to the beaten path, if not quite on it. We may err if we think
independently. There is bound to be variety of opinion if free discussion
and independent judgment is encouraged. Far-flung regions of the Islamic
realm, now bound together by adherence to half a dozen major schools of
fiqh, may opt for newer directions, especially in matters of economic
policy. And so on and so forth, goes the long list of reasons advising
prudence, conservatism, at the least wait and see. The net result is restraining
the pious, the knowledgeable and those likely to evoke trust from the
Muslim masses, from ijtihad , leaving the field entirely, or mostly, to
dare devil mujtahids. The outcome, not entirely unexpected, becomes yet
other reason why the status quo should not be disturbed!
The status quo cannot sustain itself. If we do not change in a well-considered
manner, change will be forced onto us in haphazard manner. I already see
it happening in an area so dear to us Islamic economists[9], the area
of Islamic finance. The remedy lies in getting rid of the fear psychosis,
the fear of committing mistakes in matters of religion, thereby inviting
the wrath of Allah. That is too dumb a view of God to be taken seriously.
Did the Prophet not tell us there is a reward awaiting even the mujtahid
who errs?[10] We have faith in God that needs to be buttressed by confidence
in ourselves. The chances of making a mistake today are less, not more,
than the chances of a Muslim thinker making a mistake in the third century
of Islam. We have better access to Quran and Sunnah, more works on other
Islamic sciences within easy reach, and better, faster means of mutual
consultation and discussion than was available to our fore runners.
To the Organizers of this discussion
I congratulate the organizers. At least you recognized there are obstacles
to research in Islamic economics that need serious discussion. You felt
more of the same would not do. We need to take newer directions, break
new paths. I have contributed my humble bit. I am sure the panel discussion
will throw up ideas we can pursue on to the road of progress.
________________________________________
[1]…….al-Faharis al-Tahliliyah lil-Iqtisad al-Islami (1985-86)
5 vols. Amman, Jordan ,Maktabah Saleh Kamil & al- Majma’al-Malaki
li-Buhus al-Hadarah al-Islamiyah, Mussasaah Aal-al-Bayt
[2].Certainly in the stories of the bygone people there is a lesson for
people of understanding…..[12:111.] Also see , 59:2; 3:12
[3].Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, ‘Shariah, Economics and the progress of Islamic Finance: The Role of Shariah Experts ”, Seventh Harvard Forum on Islamic Finance,21 April 2006.. Available at the author’s website<www.siddiqi.com/mns>
[4] Issa Abdoh (1978) al-Tamin bain al-Hill wa-l Tahrim , Cairo, Dar al-I’tisam. The book also records views of more than a dozen scholars other than Dr. Issa Abdoh. For the current position, see, Mohammad Obaidullah (2005): Islamic Financial Services, Jeddah, King Abdulaziz University pp.119-141
[5] .Robert J . Shiller (2003) The New financial Order, Risk in the 21st Century, Princeton University Press, page 4-7 & 149-164
[6] One scholar is reported to have defined it as “ ..a contract of donation with a condition of compensation..”. See the site http://www.kantakji.org/fiqh/files/insurance/diffbwconvIns.pdf ( accessed 21 March 2007) More on reciprocal tabarru’ http://www.Islamic-world.net/economics/takaful_intro.htm Many other details are available at websites of Bank Negara Malaysia and other Malaysian Islamic Financial Institutions and on IBF NET.
[7] S. A. Siddiqi (1948,1975) Public Finance in Islam, Lahore, Sheikh Mohammad Ashraf ; Ibrahim Yusuf Ibrahim (1980) al-Nafaqat al-Ámmah fi’l Islam, Cairo, Matabi’ Diyab; …( 1989-90) al-Idarah al-Maliyah fi’l Islam,3 vol;s. Amman, Muassisat Aal al-Bayt
[8] Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi (2004) Key Note Address to Round Table on Islamic Economics, Jeddah IRTI, May 26-27,2004. Available on the author’s website <www.siddiqi.com/mns>
[9] Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi (2006)Islamic banking and Finance in Theory and Practice: A Survey of State of the Art, in Islamic Economic Studies(Jeddah) , Vol. 13,No. 2,pp. 1-48,Also by the same author (2007) Economics of Tawarruq : How its Mafasid overwhelm the Masalih, Harvard Law School and London School of Economics, Workshop on Tawarruq, Available at the author’s website <www.siddiqi.com/mns>
[10] Abu Dawood in his Sunnan has the following report: …Amr Ibn
al-Ás reports that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “When
a ruler decides and exercises his judgment and gets it right, he is rewarded
twice. When he exercises his judgment to decide and errs, he is rewarded
once.” Hadeeth # 3574 . Kitab al –Aqdiyah , Bab # 2
[This article has been retrieved with permission from www.siddiqi.com/mns]