Public finance is the part
of Islamic social studies that historically received more attention than any
other part of Islamic economics. Detailed discussions of public revenues and
public expenditures are available in the classical Fiqh and Fatwa writings.
Here again a question arises: Did we fail in establishing a general theory of
public finance within an Islamic economic framework? The dust around the idea
of whether taxation is permissible or not and under what conditions is not yet
settled. Also not settled are the debates of private ownership protection
against the government, rights of the poor in the public properties and
revenues, the functions of taxes, economic or financial, and the restrictions
on the economic role of the government.
The Public Finance area is
probably the richest of all sub-branches of Islamic economics, yet most
writings in this area are heavily influenced by the Western training of the
writers and rarely have direct links to the original sources of the Islamic
religion or to the fundamental classical
writings on public finance. We need to develop a general theory of taxation and
government in Islamic economics that is based on the sources of knowledge of
the Islamic economic system and that looks critically at the classical writings
on the subject.
Future of Islamic
Economics
Seeing it as a teaching
discipline and a job-creating platform in the academia and the research
centers, Islamic economics is there to stay and expand. In fact, the amount of
accumulated knowledge in Islamic economics warrants a full fledge teaching
program that can afford undergraduate as well as post graduate studies and
degrees.
However, when we take a
closer examination at the existing status of Islamic economics we see a mission
unaccomplished. There is a need to set clear demarcation lines between Islamic
economics and finance on one hand and Islamic Fiqh, especially the Mu’amalat,
on the other hand. There is a need to measure the size of Islamic economics and
stop being pretentious and as pointed out earlier in this paper there is also a
need for more rigorous research in several critical areas of Islamic economics.
Islamic economics is a new
but definitely fast growing field of economics. Its trade mark, the
non-presence of interest, is not only unique but also affords it a claim of
innovation. It has an integrated institutional structure. All it currently
needs is that its promoters should wise up and tighten up their theoretical
vigor.
On the applied side, it is
certainly incorrect to attribute to Islamic economics any of the claims and
ineffectiveness of political leaders and dictators of some Muslim countries.
Besides, Islamic economists did not provide any agenda for political economics
founded or derived from their branch of human knowledge inspite of the need for
such an agenda.
It
seems to me that the present generation of Islamic economists is exhausted and
already consumed in the activities of Islamic banking and finance that the best
it can do is to hand over the torch to a second generation that may carry
deeper theoretical analysis and fill the gaps left by our generation.
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