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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2021

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Summary

Modern economic science as it is known in the West is intricately linked to an eighteenth-century European division of natural and social sciences, yet economic philosophy dates back centuries if not a millennium. Various civilizations and religions contributed to economic thought, including some of the most prominent classical Islamic jurists, theologians, and ṣūfīs. Ethical Teachings of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī studies the interplay of ethics and economic philosophy as reflected in the writings of one of the most renowned scholars in Islamic history, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). Imām al-Ghazālī, nicknamed “the proof of Islam,” contributed immensely to Islamic theology, philosophy, and Sufism or taṣawwuf. He also made seminal contributions to the field of what is nowadays broadly called economics. Scholarship has largely neglected this particular contribution, despite the fact that al-Ghazālī dedicated many chapters in his books to the topics of justice and Sharī‘a-based economic conduct in Muslim society. The academic silence toward al-Ghazālī's economic contributions goes hand in hand with a claim made by several Western scholars (e.g., J. Schumpeter), albeit refuted by various Muslim scholars such as Mohammad Ghazanfar and Abdul Azim Islahi, that classical Islamic scholarship did not offer any significant development or contribution in the domain of economic thought during Europe's Middle Ages. It goes without saying that al-Ghazālī was well studied in Western and Muslim intellectual circles. In the past decades, numerous works have appeared on his life, cosmology, ethics, philosophy, and even gender studies, but surprisingly few and relatively small and incomplete studies analyze his economic postulates, especially in light of his ethical theory of happiness. Furthermore, no full translation from Arabic into English exists of his economic opus, which spans several books and treaties. To my knowledge, only one complete translation is available in English of the third book of the second volume of his encyclopedic Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn, which is nonetheless only one source of his overall economic thought. This indicates both a relegation and a general disregard by contemporary scholars of one, al-Ghazālī's economic teachings, which form the backbone of his ethical theory of happiness, and two, of analysis of economic theories driven by human agency and ethical behavior, which is pertinent especially for humanities and Islamic studies scholars.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ethical Tchng Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
Economics of Happiness
, pp. 1 - 10
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2021

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