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The Role of The State in The Economy An Islamic Perspective
The Role of The State in The Economy An Islamic Perspective
Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies in 1982, works at the Centre for Research in Islamic Economics, King
Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah. Earlier, he served at the Aligarh Muslim University, first in the Department of Economics then as Professor of Islamic Studies. Dr. Siddiqi
has played a pioneering role in bringing Islamic economics to the Academia through his more than a dozen books and scores of articles written over the last four decades.
Notable among these are 'Muslim Economic Thinking', 'Banking Without Interest', 'Islam ka Nazariyah-e-Milkiyat' and 'Towards Regeneration'.
CHAPTER ONE
Guarantee of a Minimum Level of Living in an Islamic State
Introduction (p.5)
Nature of the Guarantee (p.6)
Basis in the Shari'ah (p.6)
Significance of the Principle (p.14)
Needs to be Fulfilled (p.15)
Ways and Means of Need Fulfilment (p.18)
Contemporary Policy Implications (p.23)
Summary and Conclusion (p.34)
Introduction
The vision of an organized Islamic living that inspires the Muslims today has some important
dimensions that have not been studied properly. One of these is a guarantee of fulfilment of the
basic needs of everyone. This, seen in the context of the Islamic view of life on earth, the nature of
the relationship between man and man in Islam, and the function of society and its basic institutions
such as the family and the state, is a very important principle. Since it emanates from the core of the
Islamic view of life which is essentially spiritual and ethical, it occupies a higher place in the order
of priorities that a similar proposition of a modern welfare state conceived at the material level and
operating in the framework of expediency and pragmatism.
This chapter seeks to study this principle, and addresses such questions as:
What is the nature of this guarantee? What is its basis in the Shari'ah?
How does it relate to the Islamic view of life and where does it stand in the hierarchy of
Islamic values?
What are those needs whose fulfilment is guaranteed? Who are those responsible for
fulfilling this guarantee?
What are the ways and means for meeting this obligation?
56. Abd al-Rahman ai-Jaziri, al-Fiqh 'ala al-madhahib al-arba'ah, Vol.3, Kitab al-Talaq, Mabahith
ai-Nafaqat.
Ahmad Ibrahim Ibrahim: Nizam al-Nafaqat fi'l-Shari'at el-Islamiyah (Cairo, ai-Matba'ah ai-
Salafiyah, 1349 AH).
57. Ahmad Ibrahim Ibrahim, op. cit., p. 50.
58. E.g. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Zakah (Beirut, Mu'assasah al-Risalah, 1981).
59. Ibn Hazm, al-Muhalla, op. cit.
60. Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi, al-I'tisam, Vol 2 (Egypt, Matba'at ai-Manar, 1914), pp. 295-8.
61. Al-Ghazali, al-Mustafa, Vol. 1 (Bulaq, 1322, AH), pp. 303-4.
62. See, Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Ayas, Ta'rikh Misr, Vol. 1 (Bulaq, 1311 AH), pp. 94-5.
63. AI-Mawardi, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyah (Matba'ah al-Mahmudiyah, n.d.). pp. 213-14.
64. Abu Ya'ai, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyah (Matba'ah a--Babi al-Halabi, 1356 AH), pp. 273-4.
65. See Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-A'yan, Vol. 6 (Cairo, Maktabah al-Nahdah, 1948), p. 118.
66. Al-Sarakhsi, al-Mabsut Vol 10 (Egypt, Matba'at al-Sa'adah, 1331, AH), p. 29.
67. Al-Qurtubi: al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an, Vol 2 (Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, ai-Misriyah, 1952), p.
242.
68. The right has in fact been regarded by jurists to be justifiable till very recently when steps were
taken to bar the courts from admitting such cases. See Abu Zahrah, Tanzim al-Islam li'l-Mujtama'
(Cairo, Dar al-Fikr al-'Arabi, 1975), pp. 146-7.
69. See, however, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Zakah, op. cit., pp. 70-1 for other reports about the
date of introduction of obligatory Zakah.
70. KE. Boulding, Allocation and Distribution: The Quarrelsome Twins' in Value Judgement and
Income Distribution, ed. Robert A. Solo and Charles A. Anderson (Praeger, 1981), p. 162.
71. Paul P. Sweeten, Basic Needs: Some Issues, World Bank and Shahid Javed Burki: Reprint series
53. Reprinted from World Development 6 (1978), p.418.
72. Richard Perlman, The Economics of Poverty, (McGraw Hill Book Co., 1976), p. 215.
73. A Dale Tussing, Poverty in a Dual Economy (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1975), p.140. Also
refer to Theodore R. Marmor (ed.) Poverty Policy - A Compendium of Cash Transfer Proposals
(Chicago, Aldine Atherton Inc., 1971), p. 186. Sheldon Danziger, How Income Transfers Affect
Work, and the Income Distribution' in Robert Haveman and Robert Potnick, Journal of Economic
Literature, Vol. xix, No. 3, pp. 975-1028.
74. Paul R Sweeten, 'Basic Needs: Premises and Promises' in Journal of Policy Modelling, Vol. 1
(1979), pp. 136-46.
75. ____________, 'From Growth to Basic Needs' in Poverty and Basic Needs (The World Bank,
Sept. 1980), p.8.
76. Frances Williams (ed.), Why the Poor Pay More (London, Macmillan, 1977).
77. Reference may be made to the relevant chapters of Fiqh al-Zakahby Yusuf al-Qaradawi, (op.
cit.) on all these points.
78. Abu Yusuf, Kitab al-Kharaj (Cairo, al-Mayba'ah al-Salafiyah, 1396, AH), pp.44-51; Abu Ubayd
al-Qasim bin Sallam: Kitab al-Amwal (Cairo, Dar al-Fikr, 1975), pp.285-346.
79. Richard Perlman, op. cit.
80. Abdun Noor, Education and Basic Human Needs (World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 450,
1981), p. 2.
81. For details see Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, Islam ka Nazariyah-e-Milkiyat (Delhi, Markazi
Maktabah Islam, 1978), pp.482-509.
82. Hollis Chenery et al, Redistribution with Growth (Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 86.
83. Theodore R. Marmor (ed.), op. cit., p. 181. Also see A. Dale Tussing, op. cit., pp. 215-16.
84. Hollis Chenery et al., op. cit., p. 46.
85. Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, Islam ka Nazariyah-e-Milkiyat, op.cit., pp. 441-54.
86. Hollis Chenery et al, op. cit., p. 78.
87. For the opinion of Sayyid Abu'l A'la Mawdudi and Hasan al-Hudaibi on this issue, see
Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, Islam ka Nazariyah-e-Milkiyat, op. cit., pp. 546-52.
88. Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, Banking Without Interest, Chapter Seven (Leicester, UK, The
Islamic Foundation, 1983).
89. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Zakah, op. cit., pp. 564-6,771.
90. Hollis Chenery et al, op. cit., p. 50.
91. Ibid.,p.81.
92. Hans Singer, Technologies for Basic Needs (Geneva, ILO, 1977), p.104.
93. Paul Sweeten and Shahid Javed Burki, op. cit., p. 418.
94. The Prophet said: 'The believers in their affection, kindness and loving concern for one another
are like the body, (so that) when any one organ of the body suffers the whole body mobilizes itself
by developing a temperature and losing sleep.' (Muslim, Sahih, Kitab al-Birr, Bab tarahum al-
Mu'minin wa ta'atufihim wa ta'adudihim. Also see Abu Dawud, Sunan, Kitab al-Adab, Bab al-
Mu'akhat, and al-Bukhari, Sahih, Kitab al-Adab, Bab ta'awun al-Mu'minin wa ba'duhum ba'da. Two
verses from the Qur'an (5:2 and 9:71) making the same point have already been quoted in 6 above.
Published by:
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