Wealth inequality has been not only rising at unsustainable pace but also dissociated from income inequality because of the fact that wealth is increasing without concomitant increase in savings and productive capital. Compelling evidence indicates that capital gains and other economic rents are mainly responsible for wealth inequality and its divergence from income inequality. The main argument of the book is that interest-based debt contracts are one of the drivers of wealth inequality through creating disproportional economic rents for the asset-rich. The book also introduces the idea of risk-sharing asset-based redistribution, which is a novel and viable policy proposal, as an effective redistribution tool to address the wealth inequality problem. Furthermore, a large-scale stock-flow consistent macroeconomic model, which is step by step constructed in the book, sheds light on the formation of wealth inequality in a debt-based economy and on the prospective benefits of implementing risk-sharing asset-based redistribution policy tools compared to traditional redistribution policy options. The research presented in this book is novel in many respects and first of its kind in the Islamic economics and finance literature.

This book discusses the need for a paradigm shift from Islamic economics universe of discourse to Iqtis�d, a socio-economic system that is entirely independent from other economic doctrines and systems of thought. It provides an overview of critiques of the science and dogma of mainstream, orthodox, neoclassical, or simply Economics, with its axioms of rationality, scarcity, and unlimited wants. There is also a critical analysis of Islamic economics, and its failures to set its own policy agenda and development objectives. Our contention in this book is that Iqtis�d--the Qur’an’s vision of how the economy is to be arranged—provides such a paradigm with a radically different philosophical foundation from that of Economics to the point that makes grafting one onto the other Impossible. Iqtis�d offers a genuine and authentic Islamic paradigm with unique etymological and philosophical foundations. It is a unique system that derives its organizing principles from the principal source of the Quran, rather than Economics. The logical coherence of its immutable system of rules compliance, institutional structures, and risk-sharing relations provides the foundations for economic dynamism, financial stability, and shared prosperity. It ensures that resources are efficiently managed, poverty is eradicated, income and wealth mal-distributions are corrected, and the internal sources of economic injustices gripping human societies are eliminated. The Impossibility Theorem proposed in this book implies that, metaphysically, ontologically, epistemologically, axiologically, and teleologically, the two polar cases of Iqtis�d and Economics are so radically different to rule out any grafting of one onto the other in order to present an intermediate paradigm with a synthetic discipline called Islamic economics. Given its multidisciplinary contents, this book will be of interest to a wide audience, including economists, policymakers, philosophers, theologians, and jurists, and can guide also free-thinking readers to a clarity of understanding about the conditions of humanity and the imperative of change with a sincerity of purpose and coherence in knowledge.  

This handbook offers a unique and original collection of analytical studies in Islamic economics and finance, and constitutes a humble addition to the literature on new economic thinking and global finance. The growing risks stemming from higher debt, slower growth, and limited room for policy maneuver raise concerns about the ability and propensity of modern economies to find effective solutions to chronic problems. It is important to understand the structural roots of inherent imbalance, persistence-in-error patterns, policy and governance failures, as well as moral and ethical failures. Admittedly, finance and economics have their own failures, with abstract theory bearing little relation with the real economy, uncertainties and vicissitudes of economic life. Economic research has certainly become more empirical despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of guidance from theory. The analytics of Islamic economics and finance may not differ from standard frameworks, methods, and techniques used in conventional economics, but may offer new perspectives on the making of financial crises, nature of credit cycles, roots of financial system instability, and determinants of income disparities. The focus is placed on the logical coherence of Islamic economics and finance, properties of Islamic capital markets, workings of Islamic banking, pricing of Islamic financial instruments, and limits of debt financing, fiscal stimulus and conventional monetary policies, inter alia. Readers with investment, regulatory, and academic interests will find the body of analytical evidence to span many areas of economic inquiry, refuting thereby the false argument that given its religious tenets, Islamic economics is intrinsically narrative, descriptive and not amenable to testable implications. Thus, the handbook may contribute toward a redefinition of a dismal science in search for an elusive balance between rationality, ethics and morality, and toward a remodeling of economies based on risk sharing and prosperity for all humanity