Editorial

Abstract

This issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences is the second in a series dedicated to a single theme. Presently our topic focuses on Islamic economics. The reader will find that the five featm articles cover a broad range of economic topics ranging from the role of government to the spiritual significance of jihad. We find that Islam compells society to integrate ethics and economics. Indeed, the Muslim finds that every aspect of life is sacred and that nothing is outside the realm of the Absolute; no aspect of life is profane because everything is attached to God. Consequently, trade-offs between the spiritual and the nonspiritual are out of the question and, therefore, there can be no theory of choice without the introduction of ethics. The science of neoclassical economics, on the other hand, takes its elements and observations out of their a priori Divine context and reduces the process of choice to a quantitative cornprison of utility, thereby denying the existence of qualitative differences requiring ethical choice. We have selected the title “Economics as Applied Ethics” because of the the underlying theme that argues against this secular reduction of quality to quantity. The first article, “The Role of the Government in the Islamic Economy” by Muhammad Akram Khan discusses the need for the Islamic government to secure social welfare. Detailing the areas in which the government has a duty to act, it goes on to discuss the Islamic justification of its role in each area. According to Khan the fundamental Shari’ah requirement for government action is maslahah (lit. “benefit” or “interest”). Al-Ghazzali applies this as a legal indicator for securing benefits or preventing harms that conform to the objective of the Shari’ah, namely, the protection of the five “essential values”-religion, life, intellect, lineage, and property. This Islamic definition of welfare is objective and opposes the modem, subjective concept of welfare defined in terms of “utility,” meaning, fulfilling people’s desires. According to this secular explanation of welfare, something is good because it is desirable rather than being desirable because it is good- the latter constituting the Islamic concept of maslahah. Therefore, the modem conception of utility could be defined in terms of a utilitarianism for the nafs al-‘ammarah, not for the well-being of the entire person. Khan argues that it is ...