It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them.
E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 57
Introduction
This paper analyzes the prevalent hegemonic methods of economic (and environmental) thought and their epistemological untranslatability to classical Islamic discourses. Firstly, I survey the modern field of economics and the idea of “progress” as it was devised by some of the leading classical economic schools in Euro-America, as well as environmental humanities. While environmental humanities is a rather recent development, it carries some of the similar and persistent issues of knowledge production as does modern economic science. I argue that modern manifestations of economic and environmental rationality based on the idea of “progress” and “sustainability” are chiefly mechanistic and devoid of ethical fiber that reflects a multifaceted ontology of economic and environmental ideas found in other non-European histories, for instance, in the Islamic intellectual traditions. These modern manifestations and methods are part of larger socio-political visions that measure ideas of economic progress and sustainable development not between the “developed north” and the “developing south”, but between those theories that are rooted in scientific reasoning and those that are frivolously regarded as metaphysical or ethical and hence non-scientific.
Against the backdrop of modern economic and environmental theories (which have also been, to an extent, adopted by many modern Muslim scholars), I consider a series of economic and environmental advancements of knowledge production from the classical (roughly between 8th and 15th centuries) and modern periods in the Islamic traditions that necessitate nonmaterial and ethical conception of production processes. Despite the formal decolonization of many Muslim-majority countries, the persistent policies of economic progress and “sustainable Orientalism”1 endure in refreshed forms in Muslim societies. If the transmission of modern conceptions of progress and sustainability to non-Western contexts is justified by the distortion and manipulation of the latter’s political environments and local cultures, such a process eventually frames local discourses as marginal, less developed, unscientific, and in need of corrective tutelage from the dominant, that is, Euro-American discourse.
Since economics and environment are conceptually integrated terms (not only in classical Islamic milieu but also in other pre-modern traditions, including Ancient Greece, where oikos referred to family, its property, and household, from which both “economics” and “ecology” derive), I propose to study them as interconnected entities in the context of a few select pre-modern texts based on tazkiya and its derivative zakāt al-nafs as the purification of the self (nafs). Pre-modern sources might present a challenge of how to negotiate these sources with contemporary financial and ecological concerns. Analyzing classical sources, however, also provides incentives on how to study economic and environmental ethics from the perspective of intellectual history, ethical psychology, and, more broadly, metaphysics. Such a process requires, inter alia, a grasp of both the complexities of the contemporary world and the historical context of the Islamic intellectual legacy. By reading several Muslim scholars on economic and environmental thought, both classical, e.g. al-Muḥāsibī’s al-Makāsib wa al-Waraʿ, al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī’s Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ, and Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, and modern, the two concepts—“economics” and “environment”—seem not only interdependent and closely intertwined, but also enmeshed in what I call the idea of holistic accountability through tazkiya, in that it pertains to one’s wholesome outlook toward nature and environment, linked to the physical substratum as well as to the celestial realm.2
Recent literature on Islamic economics3 has concentrated primarily on Islamic banking and finance. Its proponents have either depicted it as an alternative economic system or connected it to the pervasive conceptual frameworks of economics and social sciences as they developed in early modern Europe. Such labeling sheds light on a deeper problematic of how Islamic economics is conceived as a field.4 Similar is the case with the so-called “Islamic environmentalism,” which has been gaining spotlight. Already in the early 20th century, Muhammad Iqbal in Reconstruction of Islamic Thought5 attempted to devise a theological ecology based on his metaphysical system of khudi (self). For some scholars, Islamic environmentalism is an umbrella term that encompasses various fields, including ethics, theology, and Islamic law; land-water resource management and nature conservation; mystical-philosophical thought or eco-philosophy; socio-political reform (Eco-Islamist); Green lifestyles (Green Deen); and Islamic economics and finance.6 Islamic environmentalism emphasized the relevance of Islam for nature conservation and environmental protection. While authors such as Fazlur Khalid7 in his exposition on environment and nature criticizes the global economic and finance systems—seen as the root cause of the ecological crisis—the field does not necessarily provide critical reevaluation of contemporary Muslim discourse on economics and environment, their worldview, and their main paragons. In the last few decades, the literature on Islamic environmentalism focused on various aspects of religious approaches to nature, ecology, and resource allocation, and includes the works by Seyyed Hossein Nasr8 and his cosmological understanding of nature as sacred, Mawil Izzi Dien’s9 study of nature in the Qurʾan, and various other contributions within the broader field of “Religion and ecology”.10 Some of those perspectives can be designated as belonging to the Islamization of knowledge process,11 which posits a critique of modernity but also advocates for Islam’s compatibility with modern knowledge. Often, however, such theories nurture a cyclic and self-perpetuating narrative of an alleged “authentic” Islamic economic and environmental philosophy, by solely relying on the notion of tawḥīd as an all-encompassing tool to explain human role in society. Furthermore, in the past decade, a “green shift” has been taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, whereby various states have introduced more environmentally friendly approaches to tackle climate change.12 The significance between economics and environment is also visible in the emergence of the field of ecological economics.13 Yet, the physical and immaterial transactions between nature and the economy have always been centered on the human production and consumption. Hence, discussions on environment and economics are often disassociated from metaphysical considerations in line with the anthropocosmic dimension,14 which perceives nature and humans as cosmologically linked entities, a phenomenon that can be found also in pre-modern Islamic tradition.
This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I briefly present history of economics and its scientific reasoning, as well as the emergence of the field of environmental humanities. The second part introduces tazkiya (and zakāt al-nafs) through the idea of purification of the self and holistic accountability, whereas in the third part, I consider the possibility of applying these ideas through the process of decolonization of economic and environmental thought.
1 The Prevalent Economic and Environmental Theories
1.1 Economics
In the modern world “Economics takes place not just as an academic discipline, but in the design and marketing of goods, in the calculations and forecasting of reserve banks and investment houses, in the case studies of business schools and law schools, in the programs of political think tanks, and in the policies of international development organizations.”15 Understanding the works of economics requires a critical assessment of its major postulates and concepts and investigating its historical association with other sciences. I begin then by outlying how economics emerged in early modern Europe and how it was devised based on mechanisms of natural sciences, especially biology and physics. Conceptual formulations from natural sciences were used in economics, which defined individual choice theory, the notion of economic growth, and the very concept of utility. Perceptions of economics as a distinct science is a rather recent development that can be linked to late 19th and 20th centuries. Economics as laid out by Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, however, had a very different connotation that bears some resemblance with classical Muslim scholars’ exposition of earning as a wholesome development of a character. For Aristotle, the individual human action of using wealth is what constitutes the economic dimension. The purpose of economic action is to use things that are necessary for life (survival) and for the “good life” (flourishing). The good life is the moral life of virtue through which human beings attain happiness. Observing that human nature has capacity pertaining to its dual material and spiritual character, Aristotle explains that economics is an expression of that dual character. The economic sphere is the intersection between the corporeal and mental aspects of the human person. Aristotle informs us that, ontologically, economic operations are inextricably related to morality and politics.16
In early modern Europe, political economy was initially a branch of moral philosophy. Yet, economic development has been the prime concern of economic science from its very inception. It is the Enlightenment and utilitarian philosophy that profoundly shaped the science of economics as we know it nowadays. Even though neoclassical economics refer to Adam Smith as their predecessor, Smith and his followers were also concerned about moral issues and the norms of good social behavior.17 Smith uses the term economy in the context of frugality of resources: “Capital has been silently and gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals … It is the highest impertinence and presumption … in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people.”18 18th-century political economy was not focused on structures of exchange or production within an economy, but rather with the circulation of goods pertaining to the very household of the monarch. In the 19th century, however, the economists distanced themselves from the theory of the household.19 The break in economy happens in 1870 and the so-called marginal utility theory as “the analysis of economic phenomena as the interaction of buyers and sellers seeking to maximize their individual values or utilities.”20 Terms and concepts borrowed intact from physics—such as equilibrium, expansion, stability, inflation, distribution, movement, etc.—emerged, indicated a new discipline. One of the main concepts of economics was individual utility, which was modeled according to the idea of energy in physics.21 Mitchell informs us that these individual utilities were meant to be balanced in order to achieve an equilibrium. Then “the market” was introduced, which was different from the market of the city as put forward by Marx or Smith, in that it was linked to an abstract and mathematically constructed concept.22
Arguably, one could state that Smith, as a moral philosopher by training, has more in common with the pre-modern Muslim scholars than with the neoclassical economists of the day who claim Smith to be the father of modern economics. The transformation of economics into an independent science was responsible for the rise of positive economics as an analysis of the facts of how markets operate at the expense of normative economics, which is primarily concerned with social rights by examining how markets ought to operate. In classical utilitarianism, the summum bonum was individual happiness according to pleasure and pain. A moral agent should then pursue actions that generate the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.23 In modern utilitarianism this pursuit could easily be explained in terms of preference satisfaction. The benefit-cost analysis stems from Bentham’s utilitarianism, in that it calculates the utility of an economic process as a rational principle based on impartiality.24
Neoclassical economic theories play out in affirming the position of a natural man as a rational and autonomous subject that seeks to maximize utility, which became the core constituent of mainstream ideas reflected in the canonical literature on economics.25 Such an approach was to be found in scientific theories of physics26 and evolutionary biology,27 since pioneering economists, such as William Stanley Jevons (d. 1882) and Léon Walras (d. 1910), drew their economic presuppositions in accordance with Isaac Newton’s (d. 1727) theory of physics. Jevons’s approach to the natural sciences was based on a belief in the mechanical constitution of the universe and scientific knowledge. The adaptation of economic theory to natural sciences has been framed within the terms of individual self-assertion and competition, which modeled the existence of (socioeconomic) equilibrium, found in the (neo)classical economic theories, too.28 Mainstream economic worldview as we know it nowadays, has been informed by the scientific developments within a particular worldview of early modern Europe, thereby also espousing its biases, miscomprehensions, and errors.29 In addition to its multiple subdivisions and mathematical models,30 mainstream economic worldview grounds its analysis and economic outlook in a particular experience of history and societies.
Despite the many facets of economic sub-theories, the prevalent theory in the so-called orthodox or mainstream economics is rooted in liberal philosophy and neoclassical tradition of economics, advocating for individual gains, free markets, and rational choice theory. Mainstream or orthodox economics is the body of knowledge and economic models taught by universities worldwide that are generally accepted by economists, sometimes referred to as “Economic Imperialism”.
Economics is not only a social science, it is a genuine science. Like the physical sciences, economics uses a methodology that produces refutable implications and tests these implications using solid statistical techniques. In particular, economics stresses three factors that distinguish it from other social sciences. Economists use the construct of rational individuals who engage in maximizing behavior. Economic models adhere strictly to the importance of equilibrium as part of any theory. Finally, a focus on efficiency leads economists to ask questions that other social sciences ignore. These ingredients have allowed economics to invade intellectual territory that was previously deemed to be outside the discipline’s realm.31
Such theories echo the conventional idea of the economy. Mitchell states that economists
simply hope to find more sophisticated and accurate techniques for representing it. This commitment appears to distinguish them from an older and more radical critique developed on the fringes of and outside professional economics, which calls for the conventional idea of the economy to be abandoned. This kind of criticism has been driven by the new social movements that emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s, particularly the environmental movement (Daly 1991, Daly and Cobb 1994, Group of Green Economists 1992, Henderson 1978)-but there have also been important feminist, developmentalist, minority, working-class, and other critiques of how mainstream economists portray the economy (Haq 1995, Schwab 1994, Waring 1988).32
Yet, apart from measuring the GDP, the economy is not represented in a way that can account for the value of personal health or the preservation of the environment. And despite the various theories and approaches within the discipline of economics, its proponents nonetheless retain the idea of “the economy” as a distinct ontology and an object whose elements form a dynamic system that is separable from other systems and can be identified and measured in their entirety. We now take the economy for granted, referring to the self-contained structure or totality of relations of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within a given geographical space, yet the very idea of the economy dates only from the second quarter of the 20th century.
Many of the post-colonial states (including Muslim-majority countries) adopted the prevalent understanding of economics and the very idea of economic growth as a leading feature of economy and the idea of progress. Economics nowadays represents a discursive order and a particular neoclassical ideology. Such a view clearly treats the modern world according to its material reality.
The proliferation of models, statistics, plans, and programs of economic discourse all claim to represent the different elements and relationships of a real object, the national-economy. Yet this object, as one could show at length, is itself constituted as a discursive process, a phenomenon of values, representations, communications, meanings, goals, and uses, none of which can be separated from or said to pre-exist their representation in economic discourse.33
Economic development must, however, be analyzed in tandem with other discursive traditions, not least, political, social, philosophical, and environmental. Links between economy and environment are manifold: for instance, environment provides resources to economy, and acts as a recipient for emissions and waste. The type of environmental problems that contemporary societies are facing are largely the result of industrialization and colonial modernity, meaning they are recent developments. Economics is, in any society, about people’s way of acquiring a living and about the behaviors and activities related to their livelihood. Similarly, modern debates on environment and sustainable development do not always include the relationship between human attitudes and their exposition toward the lived environment, pertaining also to the growing concerns about ecological deterioration and issues of economic quality. Some of these issues were addressed also within the field of environmental humanities.
1.2 Environment
Environmental studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which studies the human interaction with the environment.34 As a modern discipline, environmental studies covers diverse principles from the physical sciences, economics, the humanities, and social sciences in order to address complex environmental issues in the contemporary period. The field encompasses study in basic principles of ecology and environmental science, as well as associated subjects such as philosophy (ethics), geography, anthropology, politics, education, law, economics, philosophy, sociology, and others. The very term environment incorporates a range of issues, including more localized issues such as pollution control, waste-, water-, resource- and energy management and nature conservation, as well as global issues such as energy security, biodiversity, and climate change. Environmental discourse also incorporates social justice, human development, poverty alleviation, governance, and economic systems.35 In Euro-America and the rest of the “developed world,” however, mainstream environmental discourse has largely been a secular affair based on dominant voices within ecology and natural sciences until the development of an increasingly popular (sub)field, namely environmental humanities. The discipline of environmental humanities as an interdisciplinary area of research that draws on sub-disciplines in the humanities, including environmental philosophy, religion and ecology, environmental history, environmental literature, and environmental anthropology, has been growing since the 1970s, building also on seminal works from the late 19th century thinkers, such as Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Kathleen D. Moore, George Perkins,36 and others. More accurately, a group of Australian researchers introduced the term “ecological humanities” in the 1990s. Since then, various books have been written, journals launched, and academic programs initiated within the field.37 Environmental humanities is based on multifold philosophical and ethical theories, some of which, however, have been Eurocentric. One of the more recent developments is that it has started paying attention not only to Western but also to indigenous, postcolonial, and feminist scholars who have helped define the field. Such voices in environmental humanities suggests that concepts such as “nature”, “environment”, and “culture” surpass the dominant, white, and Euro-American-centric viewpoints and question what constitutes the very essence of “nature”.38 Given that environmental humanities was shaped by postcolonial thought, it can challenge the persistent anthropocentric and Eurocentric methodological and epistemological assumptions that ought to include also pre-modern, non-European discourses, perspectives, and ideas on environment and nature, including those from the Islamic intellectual traditions, which have been largely marginalized.
Furthermore, the Middle East and North Africa is in the contemporary period frequently portrayed not as natural habitat and one of the earth’s terrestrial biomes but as a place of destruction, conflict, and aberration—and hence aligned with environmental orientalism and a construction of a particular presentation of its natural habitat.39 The existing scholarship on the environment in the Middle East has often omitted theories that focus on a holistic understanding of the lived environment through the notion of human accountability, whereby economic and environmental concerns coincide with ethical subjectivity, and hence maintained a particular hierarchy of knowledge. This brings into question the dominant environmental (and economic) imaginaries of how representation of nature has become a model and a norm for what we call nature itself. As we shall see in the following subchapter, various classical and modern perspectives from Islamic intellectual history raises doubt about the apparent division between the physical and the metaphysical realms, the material and the non-material, the realm of ideas and the realm of natural facts.
As a subfield of environmental humanities, environmental ethics40 may be defined as a set of norms describing how man should behave toward the natural environment and its resources. These sets of norms are often drawn from particular moral values. Modern environmental issues are inextricably linked to economic, social, and cultural factors. These are associated with the prevailing economic and environmental patterns that are for some scholars unsustainable, generated and nurtured by modern societies.41 Environmental ethics consist of three major viewpoints: anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism.42 Anthropocentrism is a philosophical form and an ethical belief indicating that humans alone possess intrinsic value. The opposite of anthropocentrism is biocentrism, positing there is another equally important dimension to evaluate than simply human interest, whereas ecocentrism suggests that all living organisms and their natural environment possess intrinsic value, regardless of their perceived usefulness or importance to human beings. Some scholars regard that the emergence of sustainability science has created both opportunities and challenges for the field of environmental ethics. On the one hand, it can foster socio-ecological relationship through its normative character. On the other, however, more traditional non-anthropocentric ethics will be not easily reconciled with sustainability’s emphasis on science and its anthropocentric vision of human well-being. That includes not only maintaining appreciation for natural habitats but also valuing the lifeworlds of the non-human environment in how ecological systems are preserved, since the focus of conservation has primarily been for the human benefit. One way to reconcile scientific and ethical theories, as well as to counter individualism and Eurocentric bias in economic and environmental discourse, might be found in classical scholarship and its epistemology of self-accountability that was explicated by numerous pre-modern scholars.
2 Tazkiya and Pre-modern Economic and Environmental Thought in Islamic Tradition
A fundamental pillar of our moral practices in modern societies seems to be to hold others and ourselves responsible for actions and the consequences of these actions. The term accountability itself is closely related to responsibility and has several meanings in the modern vocabulary, including in psychological and philosophical literature. According to the American Psychological Association dictionary of psychology, accountability is “the extent to which an individual is answerable to another (e.g., a supervisor, official review body, a group of peers) for his or her behavior, decisions, or judgments.”43 Already Aristotle, however, thought of moral responsibility as originating with the moral agent, which develops out of one’s ability to rely on reason and has awareness of consequences of one’s actions.44 The preconditions to responsibility, then, are the acts of awareness of action, moral valence, and consequences. Accountability is about delivering a commitment and having responsibility for actions or holding another human being responsible for their actions. In this context, I address tazkiya as a process of self-purification and all-encompassing accountability with links to economic and environmental discourse in pre-modern Islamic traditions.
2.1 On Tazkiya
Drawing from several classical scholars, economic interactions appear to be embedded in the very environmental habitus, based on the Qurʾanic metaphysics,45 from which it derives its religious meaning and value. I have showed elsewhere in more detail that economic thought, as put forward by several classical scholars and jurists, was founded on the idea of the ethical self.46 The focus on this section, however, is to introduce a few select texts and scholars who resorted to philosophical and Sufi conceptualizations of tazkiya and zakāt al-nafs as pertaining to both commerce and natural environment, chiefly as the quality of nurturing and preserving ethical accountability of the self. This will serves as a building block for the part on the decolonization of modern economic and environmental discourses.
Understandably, tazkiya, as a path of purification of human attitudes,47 is a multifaceted concept that sometimes takes upon different forms and terms, including ṭahāra, as obtaining a state of purification in light of the Divine.48 Several Sufi scholars emphasized a holistic understanding of the universe, including al-Ḥārith bin Asad al-Muḥāsibī (d. 857), ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 1074), al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1108), and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), to name but a few. Tazkiya reflects on increase, germination, repair, cleaning, and purification. The very word tazkiya is derived from the Arabic root word z-k-y, meaning “pure”, “righteous”, or “grow”. Tazkiya is the verbal noun (maṣdar) of the second verbal form zakkā, indicating causal effect49 that imparts intensity, demonstrating a desire to purify or acquire purity. Tazkiya does not appear in the Qurʾan directly, yet its derivative form z-k-y can be found in several instances.50 In Lisān al-ʿArab, one of the most comprehensive dictionaries in the Arabic language, Ibn Manẓūr first describes zakā as something that grows or spreads, such as plants in soil; whatever it increases or grows, it is called yazkū zakāʾan.51 Zakāt (as almsgiving) refers to ṣalāḥ (righteousness), whereas a human being can be zakiyyun in that he/she honors the very principles of zakāt.52 But zakāt al-māl also means its cleanliness or purity (taṭhīrahu) if zakāt as almsgiving is being applied to one’s wealth. Ibn Manẓūr clearly states that “zakāt as almsgiving is about purifying one’s wealth.”53 The root of zakāt linguistically means ṭahāra (purity), namāʾ (growth), baraka (blessing), and madḥ (praise), which can be found in the Qurʾan and hadith literature.
It is with early Sufi scholars that the conceptualization of tazkiya enters a more nuanced discourse on purification of the self. Al-Qushayrī, who wrote one of the most widely read works of early Sufism,54 claims that “The [Sufi] folk engage in the purification of their thoughts, improving their morals and banishing forgetfulness from their hearts [inwardly], not by multiplying the acts of piety. They, however, must observe all prescribed rites and follow [the prophetic] customs.”55 Tazkiya can be enacted only by those who know (the sins of) their souls (maʿrifat al-nafs) and who repent (tawba). Maʿrifat al-nafs that brings one close to the Divine is believed to be the very essence of religious practice.
You will not be sincere to God until you are sincere to your own soul; and you will not be sincere to your own soul until you know it well; and you won’t know it well until you examine closely and subject it to [remembering] death and the display in front of God, then its [true] states will be made manifest; and its [true] states will not be made manifest until you accuse it regarding that which it considers itself righteous therein and judge it according to its misdeeds.56
Tazkiya is usually invoked together with nafs, as in tazkiya al-nafs.57 The word nafs does appear in the Qurʾan more frequently, with various meanings. While the word al-nafs is exceedingly complex, the most basic translation of the word is “self”, “soul” or “ego”. Ibn Manẓūr explains that al-nafs encompasses spirit (al-rūḥ), body (al-jasad), and blood (al-dam).58 It has two meanings, either as al-rūḥ itself or as inner desire (raghba). He also narrates that human being has two types of soul (nafsān), namely, the soul of intellect (nafs al-ʿaql) and the soul of spirit (nafs al-rūḥ).59 In Sufi literature, nafs often caries connotation of the lowest dimension of one’s inward existence.60 Al-Tirmidhī (d. 869), who wrote on training the self, advocated for voluntary work for those who seek salvation in the hereafter. For him, nafs is a space of debauchery and carnal appetites without stability.61 In this context, tazkiya al-nafs can be defined as the process of purifying the self from vices through the internalization of virtuous qualities,62 which would include one’s relationship to the material, economic, and lived environments. Nafs can be sometimes referred to spirit (rūḥ), human being (insān), or heart (qalb).
One of the first writers to analyze the topic of tazkiya al-nafs was al-Muḥāsibī in his famous al-Riʿāyah li al-Ḥūqūq Allāh. According to al-Muḥāsibī (and later al-Ghazālī, among others), there are at least three levels of nafs, namely nafs al-ammāra (the commanding soul), nafs al-lawwāma (the self-blaming soul), and nafs al-muṭmaʾinna (the soul at peace). The process of maʿrifat al-nafs or “knowledge of the self” entails understanding the nafs before initiating to purify it. Al-Muḥāsibī maintains that the true nature of the nafs becomes evident once one acquires a fuller realization of its very nature.63 The Sufi station of murāqaba, or the constant observance of the Divine is another important practice delineated by al-Muḥāsibī.64 Murāqaba entails a constant remembrance and presence of the Divine before initiating any action. The next practice of mujāhada al-nafs or the struggle against the soul aims to tackle al-shahawāt or lustful desires and al-hawā or caprice, in order to purify both internal and external vices that are harmful to the nafs, including one’s engagement with economic life. Al-Muḥāsibī ascribes a Divine element in the process of obtaining the purification or reforming the soul.65
According to al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, tazkiya al-nafs pertains to human effort to purify the soul, such as unbelief and innovation, polytheism, lust for mundane world and leadership, spites, arrogancy, vanities, stinginess, tyranny, and lust of the lower self. Tazkiya al-nafs can be done by engaging in various religious forms, like a good deed and mujāhada. One’s function is to achieve prosperity in this world and worshiping God, whilst the ultimate aim is the Hereafter.66 Al-Iṣfahānī’s notion of khalīfa or vicegerency is closely associated with the process of purifying the soul, by striving for virtuous actions.67 The soul can be purified by cleansing the rational faculty (quwwat al-fikr) through training (riyāḍa), wisdom (ḥikma), and knowledge (ʿilm). The concupiscent faculty (quwwat al-shahwa) is purified by engaging in modesty (ʿiffa) and generosity (jūd), whilst the irascible faculty (quwwat al-ḥamiyya) is purified when it gives precedence to the intellect. The correct balance of the three faculties generates justice or ʿadāla.68 Akhlāq (usually translated as ethics), then, is closely associated with khuluq (character) and khulq (creation), and it depends on one’s spiritual insight (baṣīra).69 For al-Iṣfahānī, soul refers to the mortal self (nafs) that can eventually be transformed and recuperated.70
Imām al-Ghazālī expands on tazkiya al-nafs in several of his texts. His encyclopedic Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (The Revival of Religious Sciences) expounds ethical principles and practices through a spiritual dimension, combining ʿilm al-muʿāmala and ʿilm al-mukāshafa.71 The purification of the soul is dependent upon ʿibādāt or acts of worship, avoiding that which is forbidden, practicing tafakkur or God consciousness, dhikr or remembrance of God, and general good morals. Al-Ghazālī’s definition of nafs is similar to its conventional Sufi understanding as the very principle that amends irascible and appetitive faculties.72 Al-Ghazālī state that nafs
also has several meanings, two of which concern us here; first, it means the powers of anger and sexual appetite in a person, which will be explained later, this usage being mostly found among the people of taṣawwuf [Sufis], who take ‘nafs’ as the comprehensive word for all the blameworthy characteristics in an individual … The second meaning of nafs is the delicate entity [the soul] we have already mentioned, the human being in reality, his self and his essence. However, it is described differently according to its different states. If it assumes calmness under command and has removed from itself the tumult caused by the onslaught of passion, it is called ‘the tranquil soul’ (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna) … In its first meaning of the nafs one does not envisage its return to God, as it is far removed from Him and is from ‘the party of Satan’. However, when it does not achieve calmness, yet resists the base soul (al-nafs al-shahwāniyya), objecting to it, it is called ‘the self-reproaching soul’ (al-nafs al-lawwāma), because it rebukes its owner for his deficiencies in worshipping its Master …73
Purification of the soul can be attained through removing vice from the soul or attaining virtuous traits.74 Several practices based on one’s sincerity are associated with the purification, including possessing good intentions with the sight of God’s pleasure and worldly detachment or renouncement of the material world (zuhd), since the ultimate aim is the Hereafter. Al-Ghazālī declares the purification of the nafs as intrinsically tied to these two qualities. If they are both at excessive levels, it would produce harmful or blameworthy traits such as pride, conceit, lying, avarice, cowardice, backbiting, and so forth. If they are both at a moderate level, it will bring about many praiseworthy traits such as: ṣabr (patience), shafaqa (compassion), maḥabba (love), and so forth. The purification of the nafs is contingent upon the level of moderation established amongst the hawā and ghadab (anger), which finds its way also in commerce and trading. Tazkiya through its corresponding terms, as explicated in several classical texts, pertains to both earning a livelihood and the natural environment as part of the overall human development geared toward the Hereafter.
2.2 On Economics
Tazkiya is, as briefly indicated, also etymologically related to zakāt, as one of the five pillars in Islam and commonly translated as almsgiving. Zakāt on wealth is based on the value of one’s possessions, whereas zakāt al-nafs refers to purification of one’s wealth of impure worldly acquisition.75 In this context, tazkiya can be theorized also within the context of kasb/iqtiṣād as acquisition of livelihood, since many classical scholars believed that dealing with financial provision is, in essence, about human relations and development. Zakāt al-nafs and tazkiya pinpoint to an ethical side of obtaining human capital in economic engagements and one’s relation toward the lived environment. Economic “development” as theorized by some of the abovementioned scholars aims not only to improve the quality of economy (materiality) by encouraging what is good and forbidding that which is harmful (al-ʾamr bi al-maʿrūf wa al-nahy ʿan al-munkar),76 but also to foster the philosophy of moderation and frugality as iqtiṣād (also through its non-material effects). Some of the aims of such economic philosophy are to increase justice (ʿadl) and welfare, and to decrease extravagance and exploitation in the market and society.77 Kasb or iqtiṣād, nowadays loosely translated as “economics”, was by, for instance, al-Muḥāsibī, al-Iṣfahānī, and al-Ghazālī, designated as the endeavor of seeking what is judicious,78 covering the worldly and the material realms, with the aim to merge theoretical knowledge with moral action.79 Ibn Manẓūr describes kasb as seeking subsistence (ṭalabu al-rizq).80 Sībawayh stated that kasaba means aṣāba as to strike or befall, whereas iktasaba means to use/save (taṣarrafa) or exhort effort (ijtahada).81 Economic processes, such as, trading and acquiring wealth entail, first and foremost, ethical standards built on the quality of moral virtues, in that the material (economic) life is only a path toward attaining the Hereafter. For those scholars, trade and economic well-being are inextricably related to broader social and environmental issues, in order to strengthen social cohesion, diminish waste, and avoid any forms of harm in economic transactions.
Al-Muḥāsibī’s system of cleansing the heart and avoiding desires and vices is not only theoretical but contains practical advice on how to fast, be silent, and how to execute righteous commercial gains. In economic context, al-Muḥāsibī’s excerpts on self-examination and self-observation82 emphasize one’s spiritual faculties, such as scrupulousness (waraʿ) and detachment (zuhd), when engaging in economic (financial) transactions (muʿāmalāt). This further presupposes that one’s inner disposition is in close proximity to the ways in which one acquires wealth, as well as to the (social) environment. In Kitāb al-Waṣāyā al-Naṣāʾiḥ al-Dīniyya83 and al-Makāsib wa al-Waraʿ, al-Muḥāsibī addresses commercial life and finances in light of ethical-psychological endeavors, such as renunciation (zuhd), reliance on God (tawakkul), introspection (muḥāsaba), remembrance of (dhikr), and closeness to (al-taqarrub) God, in order to purify one’s heart (ṭahārat al-qulūb).84 He advocates for a balanced approach to earning and spending, in order to provide for oneself and one’s family, since the very aim of felicity is taqwā.
Al-Iṣfahānī affirms that work is important not as an end but to provide for shelter, food, and clothing, as well as to exercise one’s generosity, whereby the material and earthly benefits coincide with metaphysical.85 While wealth assists in attaining one’s happiness, striving for virtuous life of the Hereafter takes precedence. Poverty (faqr) might be a positive motivation for earning wealth, however, begging is frowned upon, and wealth should not be obtained or spent lavishly but rather frugally. The reasons behind such conditions are not material but ethico-psychological, in that the fear of poverty and the danger of wealth are encapsulated in the reliance on and trust in the Divine (tawakkul) for sustenance (rizq) out of human being’s restless nature. Along with other scholars within the ethical-economic genre, al-Iṣfahānī also advocates for a lawful acquisition of wealth (kasb). One can either seek and hoard worldly goods, partake in the worldly pleasures but is satisfied with less than what the basic needs provide, or one can confine only to what one needs.86 The last type is called moderation. In relation to that, there are three types of people, namely, those who pay no respect to the Hereafter or munhamiqūn, those who emphasize the Hereafter but disregard the well-being of this world or mukhālifūn, and those who are in between the first two types or mutawassiṭ and who engage in the Hereafter and in the dunyā.87 Wealth can be obtained either without labor, through pure luck or inheritance, or through commercial activity and business. In both cases, however, effort to attain a virtuous character is needed in order to maintain the sight of the Hereafter. Since not every person possesses all necessary skills and since people have different abilities for production, cooperation between crafts and industries is necessary.88
Al-Iṣfahānī’s influence on al-Ghazālī is well documented, hence it is not surprising that the two share similar views on economics. For al-Ghazālī, who addresses the nature of work and money, zakāt, licit means of trade, counterfeiting, and benevolence,89 it is necessary to revive human spirit through fulfilment of (religious) obligations bound to the Hereafter. In light of righteous trading activities and transactions, al-Ghazālī describes how trade should be conducted.90 Given that for al-Ghazālī earning is not an aim on its own,91 he holds that money (māl) cannot be obtained for its own sake,92 but that it is a tool of exchange and one of the five necessities (al-ḍaruriyāt) that can safeguard righteous conduct.93 The level of consumption thus has to range between necessity and extravagance.94 In the context of balanced economic lifestyle, poverty occurs because of the excessive levels of wants in relation to one’s income. ʿAdl is then an economic prerogative as an objective of Sharīʿa.95
The above examples indicate that economic and commercial laws (fiqh al-muʿāmalāt) are not technical matters of jurisprudence aimed at regulating individual behavior, but in view of ethico-spiritual processes of cleansing the self, also address communal affairs. What these scholars exhort is an individual purification of the self as part of broad-ranging cosmological stipulations for well-being that have (in)direct impact on the environment. For instance, the economic mechanisms of zakāt and ribā, which were introduced to secure licit transactions and safeguard one’s wealth and faith, are also relevant for one’s relationship with environment and nature. This denotes that economic ideas and mechanisms in classical texts can be studied as part of a comprehensive corpus on akhlāq as virtuous traits of character with relevance to the lived environment.
2.3 On Environment/Nature
Even though ecological criticism or environmental sustainability96 as we know them nowadays did not exist in the pre-modern period, many classical texts put forward theoretical advances and practical guide how to develop the self in order to achieve symbiosis between human and the lived environment. Understandably, classical scholars did not anticipate modern economic trends or hazards of environmental health but based on their integrative perspective on environment their natural philosophy seems to encompass a metaphysical understanding of the universe. In the post-classical period, however, Muslim scholars portrayed an anthropocentric vision of life,97 by positioning human salvation at the forefront of their vision. In what follows, I briefly discuss the concept of nature and human relation toward it in the Qur ʾan and in a few examples within Islamic intellectual history.
Like economics, the concept of environment is clearly multifold. Nature (tabīʿa) is not completely disassociated from the supernatural, nor the economic engagement from the broader natural habitat. In the Qurʾan, nature is often depicted as a visibile manifestation of God.98 The destruction of environment or economic development that encroaches upon the natural habitat, is, in the context of such intervention, seen as human re-appropriation of nature. The traditional, theocentric, views assert that despite that in the Qurʾan God subjected (sakhkhara) nature to man,99 it does not mean destruction of nature, but rather that human beings can exercise sovereignty over nature in the name of viceregency. This brings into question the very principle of autonomy of nature, in that it operates by its own laws. Rather, for few select scholars presented below, nature’s autonomy is encapsulated through cosmological processes.100 Human being—as a natural entity and part of the creation101—participates in these natural processes and ecological balance, and any imbalance in the natural environment caused by human being is regarded as disparity or rather destruction of the self or ẓulm al-nafs.102
Methods used by classical scholars were multiple, based on observation and experimentation, independent reasoning of ijtihād, as well as based on the religious sources, such as the Qurʾan and ḥadīth.103 In his ethical treaties Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, al-Iṣfahānī holds that human being is positioned between the animal and angelic realms, since he resembles both bodily desires, such as eating, drinking, and procreation, and angelic, since he possesses spiritual faculties, such as wisdom and justice.104 For him, God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, while human being was created in order to cultivate one’s crafts and qualities.105 In the process of creation, human being is of a particular importance, who was made of both terrestrial and celestial elements. Al-Iṣfahānī’s understanding of the universe and nature is rooted in a Qurʾanic worldview, paying attention to relation between nature and human being and hence emphasizing a view that considers human beings an integral part of the natural processes.106 This view is encapsulated in a cosmological context of knowing one’s material reality and metaphysical truths, whose ultimate objective is the knowledge of the Divine.107 In other words, the ultimate aim of human being is to obtain understanding of the Divine through the inner (bāṭin) processes of the soul (nafs) and also by interacting with the natural environment.108 For al-Ghazālī,109 who shares many views on economic and environmental thought with al-Iṣfahānī, human being is a microcosm that by necessity contemplates about the creation of the world and the natural environment, which brings him closer to knowing himself and the Divine.110 In this regard, pondering about the created environment correlates with the existence of the soul. Al-Ghazālī believed that the created universe—both the celestial realm and the natural environment—undergoes a harmonious process geared toward the Hereafter, since one’s action are ultimately determined in the afterlife.111
Other scholars, such as Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (d. 1050), a polymath from Khāwarzm, known for his works on astronomy and geography, bases his views on the nature on the Divine, whereby nature is not eternal but was created ex nihilo.112 There is a strong correlation between contemplation (about nature) and action, in that contemplation precedes action (ʿamal) in order to bring about true knowledge (maʿrifa), and human being’s position in the Hereafter. Contemplating nature—as an object of study in order to obtain higher truths—then, involves thinking about nature’s Divine prototypes. Nature is a witness to Divine presence and a manifestation of continuous will of the Divine. The very affinity between creation, nature, and God point to the fact that laws in nature are laws of the Divine.
The cosmic environment and the human civilization, which is subsumed by it, are products of their time, which indicates that for al-Bīrūnī time and natural progression are subject to change and hence particular.113 While al-Bīrūnī does not define nature in particular terms, neither as a technical term nor through its universal operation, he does stipulate that nature is bound to change through time and brings about creative power.114 Nature also encompasses economy as related to the Divine plan and is teleological, since environmental concerns are closely associated with economic engagement, including the notion of “utility”, which was by classical Muslim scholars invoked rather as maṣlaḥa or common good as part of the objectives of sharīʿa. For al-Bīrūnī, economy of and in nature is “in conjunction with that of the purposefulness of all things in the Universe,”115 implying that there is no waste in natural processes.
Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 1185) philosophical novel Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān116 is another example of the intricate relation between faith, science, and natural phenomena. While Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān tells a story of a young man who was born alone on an isolated island, raised by a doe, through his own experience, reasoning, and observation, he gains knowledge about the earth, nature, the animal kingdom, the superlunary world, theology, and eventually the Divine dimension and its cosmology, which leads him to mystical union with the Divine. Ibn Ṭufayl’s description of nature’s economy and Ḥayy’s story is remarkable in many aspects. It teaches that a person could attain a genuine and profound union with the Divine through ontological solitude and without being exposed to scriptural sources or a particular religious tradition. Ibn Ṭufayl brought many of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’s (d. circa 9th century) and Ibn Sīnā’s (d. 1037) concepts of nature and natural phenomena into conversation that pertain to both philosophical discourse and natural history.117 While he classified general patterns in nature and natural phenomena—from lower to higher, including soil, plants, animal species, stars, and celestial bodies, formed and unformed substances, and simple and compound substances—he also puts forward an idea that human reason is sufficient to achieve awareness and understand the fragility of the natural environment, as well as the importance of its protection, whilst simultaneously critiquing blind imitation of traditional beliefs.118 After examining various natural phenomena, such as life, death, and various conditions of change, he comes to understand that the origin of life must be of a transcendent nature. And yet the cause of all of them he cannot see or imagine. Even the relative permanence of the heavenly bodies and their consistency of movement implies a cause anterior to their existence. Their orderliness is an obedience to a high, invisible power. The natural world indeed sustains Ḥayy, but much more importantly, it is also the means to know the Divine.
I now turn toward examples of decolonization of modern economic and environmental discourses that have permeated the very construction of how we treat “economy” and “environment/nature” as self-standing categories that are often devoid of broader ethical and cosmological conceptualizations.
3 Decolonizing Knowledge Production of Economic and Environmental Theories
The role of knowledge in societies is one of power. Muslim culture borrowed from numerous other cultures throughout its history from a relative position of strength. With the onslaught of modernity, however, the Muslim world has been borrowing from a rather subordinate position in that it assimilated much of the political, economic, and social capital, including the very construction of knowledge production about economy and nature.
Walter Mingolo119 holds that modernity’s history is linear and singular, in that it pursues a single line of narrative. For Mignolo, coloniality “names the underlying logic of the foundation and unfolding of Western civilization from the Renaissance to today of which historical colonialisms have been a constitutive, although downplayed, dimension.”120 And since there is no modernity without coloniality,121 the radical shift first occurred in the economy that allowed Western empires to take over the resources associated with colonialism. The second epistemological transformation encompasses the production of knowledge and science, associated with the scientific revolution. Mignolo warns, however, that hidden in these transformations is a particular disregard (“dispensability”) of human life: “… hidden behind the rhetoric of modernity, economic practices dispensed with human lives, and knowledge justified racism and the inferiority of human lives that were naturally considered dispensable.”122 The epistemic delinking,123 then, is a necessary operation in opening up the space for vastly different yet no less scientific theories on economics and environment from other than Western, that is Islamic, origins that challenge the prevalent discourse on knowledge production. The process of decolonial epistemology brings to the surface other (“non-Western”) principles of knowledge production that entail redefinitions of categories of economy, politics, ethics, nature, and others.
Instead of subduing economic and environmental undertakings by structures of the nation states anchored in the Enlightenment reason and its mechanical separation of the subject that studies and the studied object—a contentious narrative that is ethically and culturally embedded in the theory of progress and linear history—new categories of and venues to acquiring knowledge are needed to decolonize prevalent concepts, programs, and worldviews. The methodological advancements of philosophers and economists of 18th- and 19th-century Europe, such as Jeremy Bentham (d. 1832), August Comte (d. 1857), John Stewart Mill (d. 1873),124 and others, fundamentally influenced the development of divisions in social and natural sciences in the following decades and centuries. The construction of scientific truth and the absence of pluralistic epistemology means a monolithic understanding of the physical realm, which does not accommodate qualitatively different ends and regards ethical categories as “unscientific”.125
Human moral agency is encapsulated in the understanding of the very sciences of nature, in that the economic efficiency opposes single-level utility function and introduces economic operations based on moral and metaphysical qualities. As per classical scholars highlighted above, an economic theory of market transactions through material and non-material sources is premised on the idea of human virtue. While neoclassical economics reduces values to a utility-based object of desire and denies metaphysical qualities as well as spiritual considerations, as shown by Schumacher,126 the modern economy is unsustainable, in part because of the unrestricted usage of nonrenewable natural resources. A mechanical vision of the universe coincides with the mainstream understanding of science, which further denies qualitative aspects of nature, as it does not require multidimensional theories of ethics oriented toward achieving higher ends.127 Max Scheler’s theory of phenomenology based on sympathy and fundamental connection between human and non-human habitat might assist us in this project, since it points to a cosmological sensitivity to the lived environment. His philosophical anthropology investigates the worldview of what it means to be human, displaying a three-fold perspective: a human is a homo faber; a rational animal (based on ancient philosophy); and has the capacity of religious belief.128
The question however remains, how can teachings from Islamic intellectual history contribute to modern debates on environmental crisis and ecological exhaustion in light of the established academic divisions and programs, since the modern worldview harbors a rather narrow definition of what counts as a scientific (and hence valid) reasoning in economics and environmental sciences based on observables. I have been fairly critical of the Islamization of knowledge of modern Islamic economics and finance, and its operational structures that are largely rooted in preestablished understanding of economic science and its ontology,129 yet revitalizing (pre-modern) Muslim thinkers means critically engaging with the very discipline of economics, in that the pre-modern Muslim ontology of economy entails both material and non-material features. Modern Islamic economics and finance is largely disassociated from the pre-modern conceptualizations of the ethical self, since it is encapsulated within the existing market transactions and operates with the prevalent terms, concepts, and imaginaries of economy. Its purpose seems not to be to improve living conditions and establish social equity goals that coincide with the idea of sustainability. Conversely, a holistic accountability of tazkiya is based on ethical subjectivity and combines individual utility with broader socio-ecological concerns. It is predicated upon self-examination, and it rejects the positivistic assumption that welfare or happiness have a direct positive and linear relation with material accumulation. It emphasizes the need for a far more intensive analysis of means and ends and calls for fundamental re-examination of obtaining livelihood. This is a sharp contrast to neoclassical economic postulates and their economic agent as divorced from moral deliberations.
In considerations of the metaphysical viewpoints laid down by the aforementioned Muslim scholars, the idea of wholesome accountability manifests itself in practical, social, economic, and cosmological aspects. The modern understanding of the concept of environment is for some scholars the outcome of “modern man’s attempt to view the natural environment as an ontologically independent order of reality, divorced from the Divine Environment.”130 For instance, Nasr claims that the traditional Islamic view of the natural habitat “is based on this inextricable and permanent relation between what is today called the human and natural environments and the Divine Environment which sustains and permeates them.”131 While one could claim that Nasr endorses Islamization of knowledge, some of the concerns he raises are still looming large. Traditions that foster cosmological vision of environment and economy perceive natural phenomena not only conceptually or scientifically but through applied ethics based on the scholarly tradition.132 Thinking of environmental and economic ethics as rational systems that emphasize not only personal but wider communal responsibilities toward nature in modern societies, offers vistas to go beyond the current definitions of environmental and economic ontologies. While it seems that classical Islamic sciences pay attention to the individual approach to economic and environmental engagement based on faith, ultimately, the individual is often addressed within a collective entity through societal functions. In this sense, while legal injunctions and policies for environmental and climate protection are crucial, they simultaneously also carry spiritual significance. Methods of studying environment and economy are then multifold and polyvalent.
Muhammad Iqbal in the Reconstruction of Islamic Thought came close to ecological theology. Iqbal engaged with Qurʾanic metaphysics to develop an Islamic ethics of care for the environment,133 by introducing a new relation between human being and nature. Through the concept of khudi (self or Ultimate Reality), he established a spiritual link between humanity and nature.134 Since nature exhibits change,135 it is not what it appears to be: “Nature is not what we know her to be; our perceptions are illusions and cannot be regarded as genuine disclosures of Nature, which, according to the theory, is bifurcated into mental impressions, on the one hand, and the unverifiable, imperceptible entities producing these impressions, on the other.”136 Nature is always dynamic in a perpetual flow, which is unthinkable without time, similarly to the movement of the self in its efficiency, since it knows only the present.137 Unlike Iqbal, many Muslim scholars from the second half of the 20th century perceived nature rather through anthropocentric lenses without addressing the classical tradition. They appear to focus more on the cultural, sociological, and political entanglements and not so much on the cosmological considerations of production processes. In this context, modern Islamic economics and “Green-Islam” movements that sprung out in the second half of the 20th century perhaps present only a temporary solution to current economic and environmental issues, since Islamizing disciplines presumes that Islam offers a fix to structural problems of modern Muslim societies. Economic and environmental issues, however, cannot be divorced from one another and are epistemically interrelated. Since economic and environmental questions were in selected classical texts conceptualized within a metaphysical framework that was often based on an ethical-psychological premise, economics and environmental science cannot be studied on their own terms.138 Such a framework projects a humanistic outlook toward economy, environment, and their inner structures, permeating the acquisition of wealth, production processes, and utilization of natural resources geared toward higher order that addresses both material and spiritual reverberations, based on the conceptualization of kasb, zuhd, faqr, maṣlaḥa, and related terms.
Such an epistemology necessitates a rejection of the positivistic universality of social sciences and economics’ methodological individualism.139 The process of decolonizing epistemes, terms, concepts, and methods assumes accounting for discarded, neglected, or generally understood as unscientific historical processes of epistemological reasoning found in various non-European traditions. Decolonizing dominant economic and environmental theories considers past knowledge production rooted in different localities and cultures that operate also within metaphysical or ethical discourses. This means accounting for multiple (and different) sources of knowledge, based on a pluralistic premise that also considers the ethical foundation of production processes.140
Conclusion
If one way to communicate about environmental problems is to introduce possible interdisciplinary methods and analysis, then one ought to consider non-Western, non-European, that is, also Islamic, pre-modern sources of knowledge production. In this vein, the paper interrogated classical economic and environmental teachings based on a multiple-angled epistemology centered on the purification of the self through tazkiya and zakāt al-nafs.
The alienation of human labor is on a cosmological scale connected with the alienation of human locale in nature. The economic mechanisms, such as ribā, zakāt, maṣlaḥa, in classical legal, theological, philosophical, and Sufi sources were not considered only under the category of fiqh as legal injunctions,141 but within the scope of an overall human development based on ethical premise. Such a multifold epistemology provides a hermeneutical field wherein human well-being is studied from multiple angles and perspectives, unlike the linear, unidimensional hermeneutics that is primarily centered on essentialized views of economics and environment/nature. Instead of focusing on anti-consumerist ecology alone, which seems to be a form of attaining an “authentic” buying experience, or “Islamizing” environmental and economic science, interrogating an epistemology that intricately merged the fields of environment and economics based on their cosmological significance, can be restored in contemporary societies by implementing pre-modern ethical theories of the self.
For more on the term “sustainable Orientalism”, see Ernesto Valero Thomas, “Sustainable Orientalism: Hegemonic Discourses for Environmental Sustainability and Their Transmission to Non-Western Habitats,” Critical Planning, 22 (2015): 135–151, accessible at
See e.g. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Arabic Cosmology,” Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 2, No. 2, Medieval Cosmologies (1997): 185–213.
For some of the modern theories on Islamic economics, see the works by e.g. Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, Ahmed Mohamed Khan, Ahmed Fakhim Khan, Masudul Alam Choudhary, Monzer Kahf, and others.
For instance, Mannan argues, “Islamic economics is a social science which studies the economic problems of the people imbued with the values of Islam” while Khan states that “Islamic economics aims at the study of human falāh (well-being), achieved by organising the resources of the earth on a basis of co-operation and participation”. See Muhammad Abdul Mannan, Islamic Economics: Theory and Practice (Sevenoaks, Kent: Hodder & Stoughton, 1986); Muhammad Akram Khan, An Introduction to Islamic Economics (Islamabad: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1994).
Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Islamic Thought in Islam (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013).
For a variation of these fields, see e.g. A.M. Schwencke, “Globalized Eco-Islam, A Survey of Global Islamic Environmentalism,” Draft, Leiden Institute for Religious Studies (LIRS), Leiden University, 2012.
Fazlun Khalid (ed.), Islam and the Environment (London: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1998).
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Man and Nature (London: Unwin Hyman Limited, 1990).
Mawil Izzi Dien, The Environmental Dimensions of Islam (Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth Press, 2000).
For more on the Religion and Ecology platform, see the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, accessible at
There are at least two variations or strands within this project—the conceptual Islamization by Muhammad Naquib al-Attas and the Islamization of disciplines by Ismail al-Faruqi.
Some of those projects are the solar panel project and the green mosque initiative in Amman, Jordan and in Marrakesh, Morocco, the Benban Solar Park in Aswan, Egypt, and the Saudi Arabian solar megaproject funded by the SoftBank and the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
For more on ecological economics, see e.g. Inge Ropke, “The Early History of Modern Ecological Economics,” Ecological Economics, Vol. 50, Issue 3–4 (2004): 293–314.
William C. Chittick, “The Anthropocosmic Vision in Islamic Thought,” in God, Life, and the Cosmos, eds. Ted Peters, Muzaffar Iqbal, Syed Nomanul Haq (London: Routledge, 2002): 125–152.
Timothy Mitchell, “The work of economics: how a discipline makes its world,” European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv für Soziologie, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2005): 297–320, 298.
For more see, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Aristotle, Politics (New York: The Modern Library, 1943).
See Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (MetaLibri, electronic edition, 2005).
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (MetaLibri, electronic edition, 2007), 270.
Lionel Robbins described the very subject matter of Economics as a “human behaviour conceived as a relationship between ends and means.” Lionel Robbins, Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (London: Macmillan & Co., 1932), 21.
Timothy Mitchell, “Origins and Limits of the Modern Idea of the Economy,” Draft, November 1995, 13, accessible at
Timothy Mitchell, “Origins and Limits of the Modern Idea of the Economy,” 13.
See Léon Walras, Éléments d’économie politique pure, ou théorie de la richesse sociale (Paris, Lausanne: 1926).
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche Books, 2001), 39. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (New York: HarperCollins, 2009).
“In the name of impartiality, utilitarianism has been expressed in a non-anthropocentric form on the grounds that non-human animals also have preferences—especially in not being made to suffer unnecessarily—and interests in satisfying those preferences. Discriminating on the basis of species is as irrational as discriminating on the basis of race or religion—or so goes the argument for “animal liberation,” the utilitarian form of animal ethics.” J. Baird Callicott, “Environmental Ethics in the Anthropocene,” Transtext(e)s Transcultures, Journal of Global Cultural Studies 跨文本跨文化, 3 (2018): 1–20, 10.
On the other hand, gratefulness is part of Sharīʿa’s conception of social responsibility. See Wael Hallaq, The Impossible State (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 150–151.
For more, see Harro Maas, William Stanley Jevons and the Making of Modern Economics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Walras provided the general equilibrium theory and amoral definition of economic utility, wherein value is independent of the common meaning of utility. See Léon Walras, Éléments d’économie politique pure, ou théorie de la richesse sociale (Paris, Lausanne: 1926).
See John Searle, Social Construction of Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1995); John Searle, Making the Social World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); see also Tony Lawson, Reorienting Economics (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 110–123.
The invisible hand of market, which raises the question of individual pursuits and the lack of moral limitations, is one of the most important components of Western economics. See Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, electronic edition, MetaLibri, 2007; Lionel Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962).
As an example, neoclassical economic science studies utility in a mechanical manner, while reducing needs to wants. See e.g. Ezra J. Mishan, Economic Myths and the Mythology of Economics (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1986); Mark Lutz and Kenneth Lux, Humanistic Economics: The New Challenge (New York: The Bootstrap Press, 1988). See also Diana Strassmann, who states “To a mainstream economist, theory means model, and model means ideas expressed in mathematical form.” Diana Strassmann, “Feminist Thought and Economics; or, What do the Visigoths Know?” American Economic Review, Vol. 84, No. 2 (1994): 153; Syed Farid Alatas, Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science: Responses to Eurocentrism (London: Sage, 2006).
Tony Lawson, Reorienting Economics (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 54–55, 73.
Edward P. Lazear, “Economic Imperialism,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 115, Issue 1 (2000): 99–146.
Timothy Mitchell, “Origins and Limits of the Modern Idea of the Economy,” 6.
Timothy Mitchell, “Origins and Limits of the Modern Idea of the Economy,” 30.
For more on interdisciplinarity in environmental studies, see e.g. Robert Emmett and Frank Zelko (eds.), “Minding the Gap: Working Across Disciplines in Environmental Studies,” RCC Perspectives 2014, no. 2. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6313. On the history of Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences, see
See Schwencke, “Globalized Eco-Islam, A Survey of Global Islamic Environmentalism,” Draft, Leiden Institute for Religious Studies (LIRS), Leiden University, 2012.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Walden Pond, MA: Internet Bookmobile, 2004); Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Oxford University Press, 1966); George Perkins, Man and Nature (London, Sampson Low, 1864).
See e.g. Robert S. Emmett, The Environmental Humanities: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017); Sharon E. Kingsland, Modeling Nature (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995); Environmental Humanities journal published by Duke University Press, accessible at
Robert S. Emmett, The Environmental Humanities: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017).
Timothy Mitchell, “Afterword: Are Environmental Imaginaries Culturally Constructed?,” Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East and North Africa: History, Policy, Power, and Practice, ed. Diana Davis and Edmund Burke (Ohio University Press, 2011), 266.
For introductory theories on environmental ethics, see e.g. Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III (eds.), Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (Malden, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002); Allen Thompson and Stephen M. Gardiner (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
See for instance, John Foster (ed.), Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and the Environment (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).
See e.g. Kopnina, H., Washington, H., Taylor, B. et al., “Anthropocentrism: More than Just a Misunderstood Problem,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 31 (2018): 109–127,
American Psychological Association dictionary of psychology, see
For Aristotle’s theory of moral responsibility, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), part three.
See e.g. Nomanul Haq, “Islam and Ecology: Toward Retrieval and Reconstruction,” in Islam and Ecology, eds. Richard C. Foltz, Frederick M. Denny, Azizan Baharuddin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 121–154.
Abū Yūsuf (d. 798) believed that only through justice an overall development (of society) can occur, since justice causes development and increases income. Al-Shaybānī, who was Abū Yūsuf’s student, discussed the ways of earning and livelihood in Kitāb al-Kasb, acquiring wealth or livelihood (al-kasb) has to be conducted by licit means whereby gaining wealth is tantamount to one’s faith, since one also provides for other members of society. Al-Shaybānī, like his successors, merged legal arguments with ethical reasoning, by discussing also the notion of zuhd as a form of detachment from the world. Practicing zuhd in economic affairs protects from harmful engagements, as the acquisition of wealth or earning a living is closely related to the public good. Economic affairs, such as purchases and sales, as well as money itself are hence part of both worldly and ascetic realms. Also, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā considered commerce and trading as part of ethical endeavours. Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharaj (Cairo: Dār al-Matbaʿah al-Salafiyyah, 1972), 102 in Abdul Azim Islahi, Contribution of Muslim Scholars to Economic Thought and Analysis (Jeddah: Islamic Economics Institute, King Abdulaziz University, 2005), 65. According to al-Shaybānī, al-kasb can be obligatory (farḍ al-ʿayn), recommended (mandūb), or permissible (mubāḥ). Al-Shaybānī, Kitāb al-Kasb (Aleppo: Maktab al-Maṭbuʿāt al-Islāmiyya, 1997), 70. Adi Setia, “Imam Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī on Earning a Livelihood: Seven Excerpts from his Kitāb al-Kasb,” Islam & Science, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2012): 103. Sami Al-Daghistani, Economics of Happiness (London and New York: Anthem Press, 2021); Sami Al-Daghistani, The Making of Islamic Economic Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022); Sami Al-Daghistani, “Beyond Maṣlaḥah—Adab and Islamic Economic Thought,” American Journal of Islam and Society, Vol. 39, Nos. 3–4 (2022/2023): 56–85, doi: 10.35632/ajis.v39i3–4.2988.
The maqāmāt al-tazkiya include repentance (tawbah), abstention (waraʿ), renunciation (zuhd), poverty (faqr), patience (ṣabr), trust in the Divine (tawakkul), and contentment (riḍāʾ). See Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj al-Ṭūsi, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-Taṣawwuf, ed. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (Leyden: Brill, 1914).
Tazkiya is related also to several other key concepts, including tawḥīd or Unity of God, tawakkul or trust in God, and others.
Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam—The life and works of al-Muḥāsibī (London: Routledge, 2011), 123.
See Qurʾan e.g. 2:129; 2:151; 2:174; 3:77; 3:164; 4:49; 9:103; 20:76; 24:21; 35:18; 87:14; 91:9(-10);.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 2008), s.v. “zakā,” 1849.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. “zakā,” 1849.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. “zakā,” 1849.
al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fi ʿIlm al-Tasawwuf. For the English translation, see al-Qushayri, Epistle on Sufism: al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fi ʿIlm al-Tasawwuf, trans. Alexander Knysh (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 2007).
al-Qushayrī, Epistle on Sufism: al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya, 409.
al-Muḥāsibī, al-Riʿāya li Ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad Aṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, n.d.), 326–327 in Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam—The life and works of al-Muḥāsibī (London: Routledge, 2011), 189–190.
In relation to tazkiya, the word nafs is in this context understood as “soul” or “self/ego”, which appears in the Qurʾan as a heterogeneous concept. In addition to describing “soul”, the word nafs also signifies the human being (31:28), one’s intellectual comprehension (27:14), the heart (7:205), and an ethical disposition (50:16, 75:2). Tazkiya pertains also to several Sufi practices, such as mujāhada or striving with the carnal self and murāqaba or the practice of observing God.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. “nafs”, 4500–4504.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 4501.
William Chittick, “The Words of the All-Merciful,” Parabola 8/3 (1983): 18–25; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fi ʿIlm al-Tasawwuf, trans. Alexander Knysh, 108.
Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Tirmidhī, Nawādir al-Uṣūl (Istanbul: n. pub., 1876), 201 in Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam—The life and works of al-Muḥāsibī (London: Routledge, 2011), 153.
Gavin Picken, “Ibn Ḥanbal and al-Muḥāsibī: A Study of Early Conflicting Scholarly Methodologies,” Arabica, T. 55, Fasc. 3/4 (2008): 337–361.
al-Muḥāsibī, al-Riʿāya li Ḥuqūq Allāh, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad Aṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, n.d.), 181; Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam—The life and works of al-Muḥāsibī (London: Routledge, 2011), 172.
See e.g. al-Muḥāsibī, Adāb al-Nufūs (Beirut: Muʾssasa al-kutub al-thaqāfiyya, 1991); Gavin Picken, “Tazkiyat al-nafs: The Qurʾanic Paradigm,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, Vol. 7, Issue 2 (2005): 101–127.
Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam, 170, 171.
See al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2007); Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, 2006), 472.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 477.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 480.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 493; 494.
al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2007), 59; Yasien Mohamed, “Knowledge and Purification of the Soul: An Annotated Translation with Introduction of Iṣfahānī’s Kitāb Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa (58–76; 89–92),” Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1998): 14, 1–34.
al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, 1982), Vol. 3, book 1; Al-Daghistani, Ethical Teachings of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, 34; Kenneth Garden, The First Islamic Reviver: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and His Revival of the Religious Sciences (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
See al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn, Vol. 3, book 1; al-Ghazālī, On Disciplining the Soul & Breaking the Two Desires, trans. Timothy Winter (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1995).
Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam—The life and works of al-Muḥāsibī (London: Routledge, 2011), 155. See also al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn, Vol. 3, 4–5.
See al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, 1982), Vol. 4, Book 8; al-Ghazālī, On Disciplining the Soul & Breaking the Two Desires (Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society, 1995).
See e.g., Qurʾan, 9:103; S. Murata and W.C. Chittick, The Vision of Islam (London: IB Tauris, 1994), 16.
See Qurʾan, e.g. 3:104; 3:110; 9:71; 9:12, etc.
For the condemnation of wasteful expenditure (isrāf), see e.g. Qurʾan. 17:27 and 7:31.
Adi Setia, “The Meaning of ‘Economy’: Qaṣd, Iqtiṣād, Tadbīr al-Manzil,” Islamic Sciences, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2016): 120–121.
I.e. the material (worldly) is not sought on its own, but rather as a moral endeavor of eschatological proportions. In this regard, the Qurʾanic message is theological, spiritual, and moral that transcends purely material and techno-pragmatic realm. See e.g. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, 1982), Vol. 2, book 3 entitled “Kitāb Adab al-Kasb wa al-Maʿāsh”; Al-Daghistani, Ethical Teachings of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. “kasb,” 3870.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3870.
al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib wa al-Waraʿ (Beirut: Muʾssasah al-Kutub al-Thaqāfiyyah, 1987).
al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Waṣāyā, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad Aṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1986).
See Adi Setia, Kitāb al-Makāsib (The Book of Earnings) by al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (751–857 C.E.) (Kuala Lumpur: IBFIM, 2016). Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib wa al-Waraʿ (Beirut: Muʾssasah al-Kutub al-Thaqāfiyyah, 1987).
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 377–378. See also al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2007), 392–393.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 382; al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, 390 f.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 383; al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, 403 ff.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 393; al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, 374.
See al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 2. For a more detailed account on al-Ghazālī’s economic philosophy, see Sami Al-Daghistani, Ethical Teachings of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī: Economics of Happiness (London and New York: Anthem Press, 2021).
Muhammad Abdul Quasem, The Ethics of Al-Ghazali (Petaling Jaya: UKM, 1976), 223.
Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 2, 108.
Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 4, 114–115. Ibid, Vol. 4, 114–115.
Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 3, 231.
Al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 2, 1. Ibid, Vol. 2, 1.
Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, The Book of Revenue: Kitāb al-Amwāl (Doha: Garnet Publishing Ltd., The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 2005).
For an introductory book on the field of environmental humanities, see e.g. Robert S. Emmett and David E. Nye, Environmental Humanities (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 2017).
Kaveh Afrasiabi, “Toward Islamic Ecotheology,” Islam and Ecology, ed Richard C. Foltz, Frederick M. Denny, Azizan Baharuddin (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2003), 283.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Sacred Science and the Environmental Crisis: An Islamic Perspective” in Islam and the Environment, ed. Harfiyah Abdel Halim (Ta Ha Publishers 1998), 121.
Qurʾan, 22:65. This is also best demonstrated by the Qurʾanic verse, “There is no God but He, the Creator of all things”, stipulating that there is a link between creation and the Creator. Qurʾan, 6:102.
Nomanul Haq, “Islam and Ecology,” 146.
In the Qurʾan, Adam as the first human being was fashioned out of clay. See e.g. “Indeed, the example of Jesus to Allah is like that of Adam. He created Him from dust; then He said to him, ‘Be,’ and he was.” Qurʾan, 3:59.
The very notion of the afterlife accountability influences intertemporal choice and behavior. The tradition of the prophet Muḥammad narrates normative viewpoints on the preservation of natural resources, frugality, and overall responsibility toward the lived environment, many of which were integrated into the core texts within Islamic intellectual history. For instance, Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī narrates that the prophet Muḥammad said: “If anyone cuts the lote-tree, Allah brings him headlong into Hell.” Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Kitāb al-Adab, ḥadīth no. 5239, accessible at
For instance, for the traditional Ashʿarī theology, the absolute transcendence of God merges khalq as creation with ḥaqq as (ultimate) reality, whereby “all the stages of the cosmic hierarchy above the ‘physical world,’ being absorbed, in their view, in the Divine Principle.” This indicates that all immediate causes are absorbed by the Divine. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 10.
See al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2007), 81; Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 456, 458.
Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 124.
al-Rāghib al-Isfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, 73–78.
al-Rāghib al-Isfahānī, Kitāb al-Dharīʿa ilā Makārim al-Sharīʿa, 73.
Yasien Mohamed, “Creation,” The Qurʾan: An Encyclopedia, ed. Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 2006), 158–159; Yasien Mohamed, The Path to Virtue, 132.
For more on al-Ghazali’s account on creation and nature, see my forthcoming paper “On Creation, Nature, and the Ethical Self: A Comparative Analysis of Ikhwān al-Ṣafā, al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī,” draft.
al-Ghazali, Kīmiyā-i-Saʿādat (The Alchemy of Happiness), trans. Muhammad Asim Bilal (Lahore: Kazi Publications, 2001), 91 f.; see also al-Ghazālī, Mizān al-ʿAmal, ed. Sulaymān Dunyā (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1964).
See al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, Vol. 4, book 2, Kitāb al-Ṣabr wa Shukr, 60 f.
al-Bīrūnī, The Determination of the Coordinates of Positions for the Correction of Distances between Cities, trans. J. Ali (Beirut: The American University of Beirut, 1967), 14.
For more, see e.g. Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Bīrūnī, Kitāb al-tafhīm li-awāʾīl ṣināʿat al-tanjīm—Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology (London: Luzac & Co., 1934; electronic edition, Antioch Gate, 2007).
See Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī, al-Athār al-Bāqiya ʿan al-Qurūn al-Khāliya, Chronologie orientalishcer Völker, ed. C.E. Schau (Lepizig, 1923).
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, 123.
See Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān (Qatar: Kitāb al-Dūḥa, 2014).
Remke Kruk, “Ibn Ṭufayl: A Medieval Scholar’s Views on Nature,” in The World of Ibn Ṭufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, ed. Lawrence Conrad (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 69–89.
Moreover, Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) emphasized the continuity between the Infinite and the finite, the manifested world is nothing but the shadow and symbol of the spiritual world and that the whole cosmic manifestation is connected to its Divine Principle through its very existence. For more on Ibn ʿArabī, see e.g. Munjed M. Murad, “Vicegerency and Nature: Ibn ʿArabī on Humanity’s Existential Protection of the World,” Voices of Three Generations: Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, eds. Mohammad H. Faghfoory and Katherine O’Brien (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2019), 299–314.
See e.g. Walter Mignolo, “Delinking,” Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2/3 (2007): 449–514; Walter Mignolo, “Coloniality Is Far from Over, and So Must Be Decoloniality,” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Vol. 43 (2017): 38–45.
Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2011), 2.
Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, 3.
Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, 6.
“The de-colonial shift, in other words, is a project of de-linking while post-colonial criticism and theory is a project of scholarly transformation within the academy.” Walter Mignolo, “Delinking,” Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2007): 452.
See Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Moral Legislation (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche Books, 2001); John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, volume IV: Essays on Economics and Society, part I, ed. John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967); John Stuart Mill, “On the Definition and Method of Political Economy,” in The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology, ed. Daniel Hausman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 41–58.
El-Ansary, “Recovering the Islamic Economic Intellectual Heritage,” in Proceedings of the Third Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance: Local Challenges, Global Opportunities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 9.
Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful (London: Perennial Library, 1973).
See e.g. the works of al-Muḥāsibī, al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. See also Sami Al-Daghistani, Economics of Happiness, 122.
Max Scheler, Vom Ewigen im Menschen (Leipzig, Verlag der Neue Geist, 1921); Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2018). For some of the works in English, see Max Scheler, Man’s Place in Nature, tr. Hans Meyerhoff (New York: Noonday, 1961); Max Scheler, On the Eternal in Man, tr. Bernard Noble (London: SCM Press, 1960); Max Scheler, The Human’s Place in the Cosmos, tr. Manfred S. Frings (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009).
See Sami Al-Daghistani, The Making of Islamic Economic Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Sacred Science and the Environmental Crisis: An Islamic Perspective”, 121.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Sacred Science and the Environmental Crisis: An Islamic Perspective”, 121.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, 1.
Ibrahim Özdemir, “Muhammad Iqbal and Environmental Ethics,” Acta Via Serica, Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2017, 92.
Muhammed Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 1.
Muhammed Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 24.
Muhammed Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 27.
Also, Ali Shariati compared societal functions with natural processes and argued that there are preexisting laws that govern nature, whereby man can make use of those laws. “Man is free in his deeds and actions not determined but obliged to follow the pre-existent laws of nature in order to realize his freedom.” See Ali Shariati, On the Sociology of Islam (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1979), 52.
Tony Lawson, Economics and Reality (London: Routledge, 1997), 32, 121, 296.
Alatas proposes the term indigenization of knowledge, which critiques the modernist discourses and rejects universality of social scientific concepts. See Alatas, “Sacralization of the Social Sciences,” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 40e Année, No. 91 (1995), 89; Syed Farid Alatas, “Reflections on the Idea of Islamic Social Science,” Comparative Civilizations Review, vol. 17, no. 17 (1987): 60–86.
Elsewhere, I have discussed the need for plural epistemology as a way of introducing ethical reasoning in economics. See Sami Al-Daghistani, “Decolonizing Economics: On Knowledge, Power, and Polyvalent Economic Thought in Islam,” Maydan, July 21, 2022, accessible at,
“The essence of fiqh discussions has always been theological; it is only of late that jurists tend to focus attention on economic matters in two directions.” Waleed A.J. Addas, Methodology of Economics: Secular vs. Islamic (Kuala Lumpur: International Islamic University Malaysia Press, 2008), 98.
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Internet Links
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