Property Rights and Islamic Economic Approaches

In the past four decades, a growing segment of the political movements in the Muslim countries of the Third World has turned to Islamic ideology as its guiding principle (Sivan 1985, Enayat 1982, Rodinson 19781). The Islamic popular movements strive to establish an Tslamic economic system’. The characteristics of this ideal economic system are elaborated by ‘Islamic economists’ in the vast and diverse literature known as ‘Islamic economics’.2 An Islamic economic system is regarded by its proponents as a just and humane social order, in accordance with the teachings of Islam. This social order is ‘neither capitalist nor communist, but it stands on its own and combines all the good features of a healthy and balanced society’ (Mannan, 1986, pp. 346–7). The definition of the Islamic economy as a system of social relations of production remains, however, far from clear. The most significant theoretical controversy among Islamic economists is about the limits of private property rights in a ‘true’ Islamic economy.