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Presented at the 2-day International Conference on ‘Contributions of Prof M. Nejatullah Siddiqi in Islamic Economics’ on April 27-28, 2024, by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard). Chairman of the Research Ethics Committee at King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Hospital Riyadh.
Dr Nejatullah as an Imaam of Islamic economics
- It is a pleasure to talk in this forum about a great scholar in Islamic economics Dr Nejatullah Siddiq.
- Born in 1931 and educated at the premier Aligarh Muslim University in India, which is responsible for producing many Muslim scholars and professionals serving worldwide.
- He wrote many books and articles and taught many economists, Muslim and non-Muslim.
- He deserves the title of Imaam in Islamic economics because, like the Imaams of the fiqh, hadith, and tafsir disciplines.
- He taught and trained many students who have gone on to expand and develop his ideas, teach and spread them, and eventually put them into practice by building economic institutions and programs based on those ideas.
- We can therefore recognize the Nejatullah school of Islamic economics as a distinct school that is still developing and growing.
Writings of Imaam Nejatullah
- The beginnings of the Najatullah school can be traced to his first Urdu book in the 1960s that planted the seed of banking and investment based on profit and loss sharing (PLS) as an alternative to riba-based transactions.
- The book was translated and reprinted in 1973, 1980, and 1983 and has had a great impact. Dr Nejatullah went on to write many other books and papers.
- According to my incomplete listing, Imaam Nejatullah has written 17 books and 44 papers/presentations.
- Most of his work was based on applications of fiqh al mu’amalat to contemporary economic problems, but he also called for more research on the basic themes that he presented in his writings and called for a fresh and new look at the Qur’an and sunnat as sources of knowledge, including the maqasidi ijtihad.
- In his education and work, he was a pioneer of integrating ilm naqli (transmitted knowledge) and ilm aqli (rational knowledge) in the field of economics.
Practical solutions within the ambit of fiqh al mua’amalaat
- The writings of Dr Nejatullah are characterised by addressing practical issues and finding practical solutions for them from the Islamic perspective.
- He worked within the context of fiqh al mu’amalaat to solve modern economic problems existing and anticipated.
- He made a few attempts to define or develop a theoretical Islamic economic system which was a very wise decision because it was not yet time for that.
- More research and practice over several future decades will be needed before developing such a model.
- Such a model must consider the human being as a producer and a consumer, taking into account his or her economic attributes, most of which have been explained in the Qur’an.
Failure of theoretical utopian economic models
- Utopian economic models divorced from practical realities have ended in disasters in human history.
- Karl Marx developed the community theory of economic organizations and his disciples imposed it by force on the Soviet Union and other communist countries without taking local realities into consideration.
- The results were disastrous and eventually led to economic collapse and the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the communist bloc.
- I think that the biggest failure of the system was forgetting the human reality in the economic equation; humans have needs, wants, feelings, preferences, habits, etc., that cannot be replaced by theory and ideology.
- The Soviet system also introduced material incentives when it found that the workers were not incentivised enough by the communist ideology.
- The Cuban economic model based on the ‘new person’ motivated by moral or ideological incentives was abandoned after economic disasters of the 1970s and the leaders tried traditional material incentives such as bonuses and overtime[i].
Human economic
attributes
- Humans have positive and negative attributes that we must take into account in any successful economic model. ِ
- Humans as economic players are not pure angels; we need to know their weaknesses and mitigate them for the societal good however, the capitalist system exploits these weaknesses to maximize the gains of the owners of capital.
- We need to know the human’s strengths and enhance them for economic improvement.
- Dr Nejatullah prescribed to this point of view when he regretted that he did not have enough time to write more about the role of the family as an economic unit as well as human behavior and its motivations in the economy.
- The household is a basic and fundamental social unit but does not figure a lot in modern western-style economic analysis that emphasizes the market and the consumer.
- The consumer wrongly described as sovereign has spiritual and material motivations arising out of his / her humanity that have not been explored from an Islamic perspective.
- Our hope is that the students and disciples of the Dr Nejatullah school will take up this challenge in earnest.
Some of the human attributes in the Qur’an relevant to economics-1
1. Wealth is an ornament of the lowly earthly life. Kahf:46
- الْمَالُ وَالْبَنُونَ زِينَةُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَالْبَاقِيَاتُ الصَّالِحَاتُ خَيْرٌ عِنْدَ رَبِّكَ ثَوَابًا وَخَيْرٌ أَمَلًا
- 'Wealth and children are an adornment of the life of the world. But the deeds of lasting righteousness are the best in the sight of your Lord in reward, and far better a source of hope.'
2.
Amassing wealth is a distraction. Takathur: 1-2
- أَلْهَاكُمُ التَّكَاثُرُ
- The craving for ever-greater worldly gains and to excel others in that regard keeps you occupied.
3.
Inpatient, distressed, and withholding. Maarij 19-22
- إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ خُلِقَ هَلُوعًا إِذَا مَسَّهُ ٱلشَّرُّ جَزُوعًۭا وَإِذَا مَسَّهُ ٱلْخَيْرُ مَنُوعًا إِلَّا ٱلْمُصَلِّينَ
- ‘Indeed, humankind was created impatient: distressed when touched with evil, and withholding when touched with good’
4. Love
of wealth. Fajr:20
- وَتُحِبُّونَ الْمَالَ حُبًّا جَمًّا
- ‘…and love wealth fervently’
5. Stinginess.
Hashr:9 Lail:8-11
- وَمَنْ يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ
- ‘And whoever is protected from the stinginess of his soul – it is those who will be the successful’.
6. Miserliness.
Lail 8-11
- وَأَمَّا مَنْ بَخِلَ واستغنى وَكَذَّبَ بالحسنى فَسَنُيَسِّرُهُ للعسرى وَما يُغْنِي عَنْهُ مالُهُ إِذا تردى
- But as for he who withholds and considers himself free of need And denies the best [reward], We will ease him toward difficulty.
Some of the human attributes in the Qur’an relevant to economics-3
7. Love
of fun wealth and showing off. Hadiid:20.
- اعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا لَعِبٌ وَلَهْوٌ وَزِينَةٌ وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ ِ
- Know that this worldly life is no more than play, amusement, luxury, mutual boasting, and competition in wealth and children.
8. Wastage. Isra 26-27
- وَلا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيراً إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينِ وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ لِرَبِّهِ كَفُوراً)
- But spend not wastefully (your wealth) in the manner of a
spendthrift.. Verily, the spendthrifts are brothers of the Shayatin
(devils), and the Shaytan is ever ungrateful to his Lord.
9. Laziness. Taubah:54
- وَمَا مَنَعَهُمْ أَن تُقْبَلَ مِنْهُمْ نَفَقَاتُهُمْ إِلَّا أَنَّهُمْ كَفَرُوا بِاللَّهِ وَبِرَسُولِهِ وَلَا يَأْتُونَ الصَّلَاةَ إِلَّا وَهُمْ كُسَالَىٰ وَلَا يُنفِقُونَ إِلَّا وَهُمْ كَارِهُونَ
- And what prevents their expenditures from being accepted from them but that they have disbelieved in Allah and in His Messenger and that they come not to prayer except while they are lazy and that they do not spend except while they are unwilling.
10. Fraud.. Mutafifiin 1-4
- وَيْلٌ لِّلْمُطَفِّفِينَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا اكْتَالُوا عَلَى النَّاسِ يَسْتَوْفُونَ وَإِذَا كَالُوهُمْ أَو وَّزَنُوهُمْ يُخْسِرُونَ أَلَا يَظُنُّ أُولَٰئِكَ أَنَّهُم مَّبْعُوثُونَ
- Woe to the defrauders! Those who take full measure ˹when they buy˺ from people, but give less when they measure or weigh for buyers.