Islamic Approach To Development : Some Policy Implications
If the development experience of the Muslim countries in particular and of the Third World countries in general spread, as it is, over the last forty years has failed to inaugurate a new era of sustained growth and widespread wellbeing, can there be an alternate road? Capitalistic as well as socialistic roads have landed mankind into a cul-de-sac. Is there a way out?
Muslims claim they have an alternative. Islam is not merely a religion that deals with private relationship between man and God, it provides guidance for the entire gamut of life, including man’s economic life and destiny. An effort has been made in this small book to spell out some of the major features of an Islamic approach to economic development and what are its implications for the formulation of a development strategy.
I had a chance to speak on different aspects of this subject from different platforms. King Faisal Foundation invited me to speak on Islamic concept of development (May 1992). Earlier, I had an occasion to speak at International Economic Conference in Istanbul on Muslim common market (May 1987). On the occasion of the 3rd International Conference on Islamic Economics (Kuala Lumpur, January 1992). I had an occasion to give the keynote speech which also dealt with the development experience of the Third World countries. Materials discussed on all these occasions were available in transcripts of those presentations. Now an effort has been made to integrate the diverse presentations into a set of thesis on Islamic approach to development. I am grateful to my brother Sahibzada Mohibul Haq, to add in the form of appendix valuable statistical material on the Muslim world. I hope in its present form this small book would be of some help to those who want to understand what Islam has to say on economic development and how that guidance can be the source for the formulation of new strategies for the development of the Muslim countries individually, and of the Islamic Ummah, collectively.
ISLAMABAD
December 8, 1993
Khurshid Ahmad
