Economic Thinking of Arab Muslim Writers During the Nineteenth Century

Reform (Islah) has been an inherent aspect of Islamic thoughts and movements throughout history. This aspect has been noticed in many disciplines over the centuries. However, it would seem that economic Islah has been lagging behind and was given an impetus only in with the awakening of Muslims in the nineteenth century after they came into contact with the West and realised their economic backwardness. The Muslim-Arab world was under the control of colonial powers and this brought a drastic change in Mu[amalat due to the imposed exploitative commercial endeavours. In the nineteenth century, leading Muslim figures realised the impact of this change and became aware of the relative Muslim stagnation compared to the West. The various disciplines that brought economic development in the West were relatively new to the Arabs. The nineteenth century saw the emergence of a few Muslim writers who were not economists per se but wrote on the malaise of the Arab world and how to tackle it. Their writings became the foundation for further inspiration in developing Islamic economics.