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By Shahul Hameed
Islam is neither capitalism (Right) nor socialism (Left). It is the comprehensive way of life decreed for mankind by Allah Almighty. In Islam we find principles and formulations aimed at shaping the individual as well as the collective life of man within the parameters of divine guidance contained in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. As Islam encompasses all areas of human life, both politics and economics come under its purview.
The two socio-economic systems predominant in today’s world are democratic capitalism and democratic socialism. The hallmarks of the former are private ownership and free markets, while those of the latter are collective ownership and state control. The United States and France are two countries that have adopted the democratic capitalist system, while China and India, for instance, have adopted democratic socialism.
We find that both these systems suffer from inherent and systemic flaws that have made their practitioners leave their ideals and hastily adopt measures that undermine the very foundation of those systems. Thus, France often calls itself a socialist country, while China already shines with a capitalist hue.
There is also the Communist system, which is described as the culmination of the socialist evolution. But it has never materialized in history and exists only in the dissertations of staunch ideologues. Communism is impracticable, as it seeks to violate human nature and basic instincts.
In contrast with the above systems, the Islamic system approves of individual ownership in the case of certain things and collective ownership in certain other things. Islam also provides for the state ownership of some resources.
Although the true Islamic political system does not exist now, (of course, there are some countries that call themselves, “Islamic”) it once flourished, producing dramatic results. It was Islam in its pristine purity that succeeded in transforming a primitive desert people into the most civilized nation of the time. The boundaries of the Islamic Empire then stretched between China in the East and the Atlantic Ocean in the West. It was the deviation from Islam that caused the failure of the Islamic Empire.
Islam stands for the submission and subordination of all our interests and concerns to the One God; and the foundation of the Islamic state is the principle of the oneness of God. All humans, being the creations of the One God, are equal. Islam views man as a part of nature, which is destined to obey certain rules. The so-called natural laws are the laws of God; and as nature obeys God’s physical laws, nature is Muslim (that is, submitting peacefully to God’s laws). All the planets that float around the sun obey the unalterable laws of God, and so they are Muslim (submitting peacefully to God). Man is distinguished from other creatures of God by virtue of his reasoning power and free will. Man obeys two kinds of laws.
The first kind covers the physical, biological, and instinctive activities like breathing, digesting, or feeling curious. The second kind covers those activities that are based on man’s free choice and decision.
God commands us to live in harmony with the natural laws; when we obey God’s laws of nature, we are Muslim in the basic sense; but when we obey God in areas where we can make moral choices, we are Muslim by willful choice. Man is God’s vicegerent on earth, as Allah says in the Qur’an what means:
*{And when your Lord said to the angels, I am going to place in the earth a vicegerent, they said: What! will You place in it such as shall make mischief in it and shed blood, and we celebrate Your praise and extol Your holiness? He said: Surely I know what you do not know.}* (Al-Baqarah 2:30)
So, the Muslims (who know their God-given role on earth) must strive to fulfill their khilafah (vicegerency) on earth. A moment’s reflection will convince us that the role of khilafah involves both individual and collective efforts. The Islamic state is the chief medium of the collective efforts of Muslims in this regard. It is from this concept that the politics of Islam derives.
One major thrust of the Islamic system is its effort to attain social justice. This should be obvious to anyone who has a cursory knowledge of the Qur’an. For example, the Qur’an says what means:
*{O you who believe! be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness of Allah’s sake, though it may be against your own selves or [your] parents or near relatives; if he be rich or poor, Allah is nearer to them both in compassion; therefore do not follow [your] low desires, lest you deviate; and if you swerve or turn aside, then surely Allah is aware of what you do.}* (An-Nisaa’ 4:135)
It also says what means:
*{O you who believe! Be upright for Allah, bearers of witness with justice, and let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably; act equitably, that is nearer to piety, and he careful of [your duty to] Allah; surely Allah is Aware of what you do.}* (Al-Ma’idah 5:8)
So the Islamic state would strive for social justice by all the means at its disposal; and naturally to lessen the material differences among the people has top priority for it. Capitalism, on the contrary, favors the rich and approves and contributes to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the society; and this is one major difference between the two systems.
Islam recognizes the differences among people owing to their natural inborn talent, education, capacity for work, and so on, and makes allowances for these. But socialism would ignore these differences among people and impose its “concept of equality” on the society. That is why the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (the radical Communists who controlled Cambodia for four nightmarish years from 1975 to 1979), for instance, compelled engineers and doctors to work in the farms, with disastrous consequences. But the Islamic state recognizes these differences and gives freedom to people by providing equal opportunities for all members of the society to develop and utilize their talents and tastes as best as they can.
The chief cause of economic problems, according to the capitalists, is the scarcity of natural resources; whereas according to the socialists, it is the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. Islam differs from both as it realizes that the reason for the economic problems is man himself. The Qur’an says what means:
*{And He has made subservient to you the sun and the moon pursuing their courses, and He has made subservient to you the night and the day. And He gives you of all that you ask Him; and if you count Allah’s favors, you will not be able to number them; most surely Man is very unjust, very ungrateful.}* (Ibrahim 14:33-34)
This means that unjust and ungrateful man disregards God’s laws that provide the principles of equality and social justice; thereby he creates discord between groups and wastes the resources and scatters destruction. Thus, from the Islamic point of view, it is man himself who is the root of all problems; so if man is taught to check his pride, his meanness and his greed, there will be peace on earth, as well as progress and prosperity.
For the above reason, the first endeavor of Islam is to develop in its adherents a commitment to honor God’s laws in nature, in individual life as well as in social life. In brief, the political or economic system of Islam is an inseparable part of a complete code for the whole of human life. Therefore, it is pointless to isolate one area of human endeavor from the total Islamic system to analyze it. In other words, the economics or politics of Islam is of a piece with its morality and spirituality, which are reflected in Muslim life. The advantage Islam has over man-made systems is that Islam binds man to God. As someone has explained, Islam starts from the depths of the human conscience and proceeds in its endeavor to secure a happy life for all.
http://www.onislam.net/english/ask-about-islam/islam-and-the-world/politics-and-economics/166290-is-islam-capitalist-or-socialist.html?
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The unfortunate conditions obtaining in the Muslim world today have misguided some to regard the Islamic economic system as a form of "Capitalism." Nothing can be farther from truth. Exactly speaking, Islam is a class by itself. But if it can be likened to any of the modern ideologies, that is Socialism. A brief analysis of the economic teachings of Islam in the light of this fact may, therefore, be given, in order to bring into broad relief the role which Islam can play in defeating the challenge of Communism.
(1) Islam is not "Capitalism" because, although it allows private property and gives the scope for personal initiative, it is definitely opposed to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Islam achieves that end by different means, the most important among which are:—
(a) Islam stands for the state-ownership of such "means of production" as the mineral wealth, thus eliminating from its society the steel-barons and the oil-magnates.
(b) Islam prohibits usury and interest in all forms. All students of economics know that the greatest impetus which Capitalism receives today is from the modern system of Banking which functions on the basis of interest. Islam does not permit the rate of interest to rise above zero and conceives the Bank primarily as the medium of commercial transactions.
(c) In the field of Agriculture, Islam does not favour feudal absentee landlordism. Its ideal is the creation of a society of peasant-proprietors.
(d) Among all the systems of Law, the Islamic law of inheritance is the most anti-capitalistic. It stands for the distribution of inherited wealth among the largest number of persons on the basis of the widest margin of relationship.
(e) Islam condemns the hoarding of capital in very strong terms. It imposes a fairly heavy tax on all capital, above a certain minimum standard, for the benefit of the less fortunates.
(2) The Islamic economic system is "socialistic" because:—
(a) From the ultimate point of view, Islam regards the interest of the society above the interest of the individual.
(b) Islam makes it an obligation of the Islamic state to provide for the basic necessities of life, including such 'modem necessities' as health services and free education, for all of its citizens. With that end in view Islam levies a Social Insurance Tax on all persons possessing more than a certain minimum of wealth.
(c) Islam stands for free trade. It is averse to monopolies and favours the participation of the largest number of people in commerce, for which it advocates the creation of Mutual Alliance Societies—Islam's substitute for Capitalistic Banking.
(d) In the field of industry, Islam's ideal is the creation of the "Co-operative Guilds of Workers" where all forms of exploitation as well as unrest and bad blood are eliminated.
(e) Islam, however, does allow private enterprise in industry even as it allows private trade. But then it propounds a socialistic principle of wages. In that connection: (i) It gives freedom to the wage-earner to fix his wages at whatever reasonable level he desires. Simultaneously with this prerogative it safeguards the wage-earner against all possible harm which the 'capitalist' might do to him by closing the doors of livelihood, and for that purpose it creates a fund for the maintenance by the state of all unemployed wage-earners; (ii) The standard of wages which Islam has ordered all the Muslim employers to adhere to is that in which the employee gets the "same to eat" which the employer eats and the "same to wear" which the employer wears. That means equalisation of economic status between the employer and the employee in the basic necessities of life.
(f) Islam does not only demarcate clearly the legitimate (socially good) and the illegitimate (socially evil) means and methods of income but it also limits the legitimate items of expenditure in such a way that in a. truly Islamic society it must become (and it did become in actual fact in the glorious period of Muslim history) impossible to find glaring inequalities in the basic manifestations of economic life. It is in the field of luxuries that most of the social heart-burning is to be found, and Islam sets healthy limits to them. For instance, household articles made of gold and silver have always formed an integral part of aristocratic life. Islam prohibits them definitely. Similarly, Islam prohibits the use of certain types of aristocratic clothes by men. Islam has permitted the Muslims to spend only on such things which have some real utility for the development of human life and it lays down the comprehensive principle that all spare money which one has, after spending on the basic and healthy necessities of life, is a trust of God meant for the improvement of the social health.
(g) As all students of Islam know, Islam establishes "spiritual democracy," "social democracy" and "political democracy" of the most perfect type. The teachings of Islam relating to these three aspects of human life, combined with its economic teachings, if followed in letter and spirit, guarantee the establishment of a classless society where all social conflicts must remain in abeyance.
http://ourpurposeoflife.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/islam-capitalism-and-socialism.html
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