Islamic Economic
Jan 28, 2009 Islamic Economic
In Muslim communities, economic activities take place within a legal constraint, which are the tenets of Shari’ah. How products, consumption and exchange differ from conventional economic system, and now economic behavior in Islamic framework is explained by economic theories.
A study of history reveals that Muslims have a rightful claim to be called the orginators of the practice of marketing as well as the theory of marketing .
Current attempts to identify marketing as a twentieth century discovery , and the west , especially the USA, as the country of its origin is incorrect.
Muslim Literature reveals the identification of marketing and its various function by the muslims nearly a thousand years ago . In fact , had it not been for Islam marketing would probably have been an undesirable activity and the subject of marketing and its teaching and study banned in the civilized world .
Wherever the progress of civilizations is discussed unbiased scholars accept the contributions of Islam as undisputed .
However , modern students of business management and economics are brainwashed (there is no other appropriate word) into believing that modern civilization started after the industrial revolution . for them economics starts with the wealth of nations . In fact the literature available to a university students in the normal course of his studies practically never mentions any thing earlier than Adam Smith , or if any , in a perfunctory manner . Students have a vague idea of pre-Smithian economics . Mostly it is Greek thought . A vast chasm of a thousand years then intervenes till St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274, and another gap of five hundred years till Adam Smith appears on the scene . The period immediately before Smith id characterised as chaos and confusion , and Adam Smith is presented as having brought enlightenment into economic thought and , later , order in the chaotic economies .
Subsequently , students are taught , as progress was made , and nearly after a century and a quarter , when the productivity and production of the industries improved beyond a certain level , the impotance od sales was realised , and later still the concept of marketing crystalised in America during the middle of the present century .
The result is that a student bred on these ideas develops a narrow and biased view of marketing and economics as western discoveries . and marketing as purely a modern and American invention . Consequently , the practitioner of marketing as well as its student always turn to the West to discover the latest developments in practice as well as theory , and often try to follow these to the best of their ability . The Muslim marketing practioner , as well as the student , is unable to stand on his own feet . When the relationship between Islam and economics or marketing is discussed , even a Muslim students is at a total loss and fails to comprehend the relation between religion and a wordly subject like economics . When it comes to marketing , for him there is no relationship , and if any , he would believe it to be probably a negative one , or at the most concerned with ethical aspects such as correct measure and weighing , fair dealing , etc.
This unfortunate approach prevents the appreciation of the true contribution of Islam and distorts the perspective about the future . By developing an image of the West as the creator of the modern world, it makes the Muslim student feel that he has neither the philosophy nor the concepts suitable for the twentieth century , and that if he wishes to survive and make progress, he has to borrow his philosophy as well as the concepts and tools from the west . Not surprisingly , even though amongst religions only Islam has ordered acquisition of knowledge as compulsory , it is the well educated ones who question most the contribution of Islam to human progress, and the relevance of Islam in a modern enlightened world . This is because the real contributions of Islam in restructuring society , especially in the economics sphere , on modern foundations have not been discovered or discussed at all .
The purpose of this article is to briefly present the true role of Islam in restructuring human society , then to show that the practice of marketing have their foundations in the philosophy offered by Islam , and then present some thoughts of Ibn Khaldun on marketing though writers earlier than Ibn Khaldun had also significant ideas on economics and marketing, I have limited the scope of this article to only Ibn Khaldun.
Tags: Islamic Economic
