Contemporary Jurisprudence: Did the late Motahhari believe that Islam possesses an economic system distinct from other economic systems?

Farahani Fard: Shahid Motahhari was convinced that Islam has an economic system. Sometimes, like Shahid Sadr, he refers to the system as a “school” (maktab). He held that in Islam the economic school determines the direction and path of the science of economics, while the science of economics serves the economic system and shapes it under varying conditions.[1]

To clarify this and distinguish the economic system from the science of economics, he first states: Broadly speaking, economic relations are of two kinds: natural (takwīnī) and conventional/contractual (iʿtibārī). Natural relations consist of a series of cause-and-effect relationships that inevitably arise in economic matters—such as supply and demand, monetary inflation, unemployment, economic crises, etc. Conventional relations, on the other hand, pertain to laws concerning rights, ownership, and relations among economic institutions.

The science of economics is responsible for explaining the first type of economic relations; the economic school aims to articulate the second type. In other words, the science of economics describes the laws of nature as they are, whereas the economic school prescribes economic relations as they ought to be. From the first perspective, economics is a theoretical science, and disagreements therein resemble disagreements in the empirical sciences, hence relatively rare. From the second perspective, however, economics is a school and system, and it is here that questions of justice and injustice, good and bad, fitting and unfitting arise.

In Islamic economics our primary and fundamental concern is the economic school, not the science of economics. In other words, what we discuss in Islamic economics is programmatic economics, not scientific economics. Hence we have no “Islamic physics,” but we do have an “Islamic economics.”

Contemporary Jurisprudence: What were the most important presuppositions and foundations that he considered for the economic system of Islam?

Farahani Fard: The most important presuppositions and foundations of the economic system according to Shahid Motahhari are:

1. God-centredness
   Shahid Motahhari regarded the greatest difference between the Islamic economic system and other economic schools to lie in the belief in God’s creatorship and lordship and in the effort to guide and train human beings toward worship and servitude to God. The capitalist economic system, which in reality stems from deistic thought, believes only in God’s creatorship and denies His comprehensive and perpetual governance, holding that God created the world according to natural order and has no need to intervene or administer it. Socialists, based on the materialist thought borrowed from Bach and blended with Hegelian dialectic, believe in neither God’s creatorship nor His governance and offer only material analyses of economic phenomena. The economic system of Islam, derived from the pure monotheism of the religion of Islam, possesses a distinctive view of God, the world, and humanity. In this system, God Almighty—who is the Creator and Originator of the world and humanity—is absolutely self-sufficient, absolutely perfect, and simple in all aspects. His attributes are identical with His essence; the world is entirely His act; the whole universe manifests His will and volition; no will rivals His; every agent and every will stands in prolongation of His will, not alongside it.

2. Comprehensiveness and balance
   One of Islam’s distinctions over other religions is its comprehensiveness, balance, and—in the Qur’an’s own term—“moderation” (wasatiyya). One-sidedness in a law or school carries within itself the reason for its own abrogation. The factors influencing human life are numerous; neglecting any one of them inevitably creates imbalance. The most important element of eternal validity is attention to all material and spiritual, individual and social dimensions.

3. Economic freedom
   One of the foundations most emphasised by Shahid Motahhari is economic freedom. After explaining the capitalist and socialist views on freedom, he discusses their origins and Islam’s differing perspective. He attributes differing interpretations of economic freedom to differing views on the primacy of the individual or society. Liberal schools, focusing on individual interests, grant maximum freedom to the individual; Marxist views, considering societal interests primary, severely restrict individual freedom.

   Islam, while being a social religion that thinks of society and holds the individual responsible to it, does not disregard the rights and freedom of the individual. From Islam’s viewpoint the individual possesses rights politically, economically, judicially, socially, and familially: politically, the right of consultation and election; economically, the right of ownership over the fruit of one’s labour, the right of exchange, charity, endowment, lease, sharecropping, profit-sharing, etc., with lawfully acquired property; judicially, the right to sue, obtain justice, and bear witness; socially, the right to choose occupation, residence, field of study, etc.; familially, the right to choose a spouse.

   At the same time, he considers human freedom in the Islamic economic system different from other schools: freedom in Islamic sharīʿa must assist a person in approaching divine proximity and is therefore subject to restrictions. The principal restriction is the preservation of humanity—one may be free from everything except the bond of humanity.

   Human economic activities are also restricted. Some restrictions are fixed and universal, determined by the sharīʿa—for example, a person may not produce and offer to society any good, even if he possesses the factors of production, if it harms society, nor may he consume whatever and however much he wishes. Prohibitions on usury, hoarding, deceptive transactions, extravagance, luxury, etc., exist for this purpose. Other restrictions are left to the government, which is permitted, when necessary and to secure the interests of Muslims, to limit certain freedoms.

4. Social-economic justice[2]
   Another foundation of the Islamic economic system according to Shahid Motahhari is the establishment of comprehensive justice in all its dimensions, including economic justice. The primacy of justice means that every deduction of economic issues and every economic policy must be oriented toward justice. In many cases justice is also regarded as the goal of the economic system.

   The importance of economic justice is evident from the fact that Imam ʿAlī (ʿa) cited the disruption of social justice—including economic justice—and the division of people into two classes, the overfed and the starving, as the reason for accepting the caliphate after ʿUthmān: “Were it not for the presence of the assembled people and the establishment of proof through the existence of supporters, and were it not that God has taken a covenant from the learned not to acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor nor the hunger of the oppressed, I would have cast the rope of the caliphate on its own shoulders and left it alone…”[3]

   Imam ʿAlī (ʿa) repeatedly emphasised, at the time of people’s pledge of allegiance to him, his sensitivity to establishing economic justice and abolishing unjust privileges.

A strong and supervisory government Despite granting economic actors freedom within the bounds of the sharīʿa, the Islamic system—unlike capitalism—believes in a powerful government with abundant financial resources. Nevertheless, the government’s role is primarily policy-making and supervision of people’s economic activities, resorting to direct management only in exceptional cases. The government plays a major role in the just distribution of income and wealth, poverty alleviation, reduction of inequality and class disparity, prevention of speculation, etc.

A people-based economy He paid great attention to the role of the people in the economy and believed that the people must play the primary role in production, distribution, and other economic activities.

Contemporary Jurisprudence: What were his distinctive views on Islamic economics and the fiqh of economics?

Farahani Fard: As mentioned earlier, he distinguished between school (maktab) and science, holding that Islam seeks to articulate an Islamic economic school and system, not a science.[4] He states: Islam has two kinds of connection with economics: a direct connection through a series of economic regulations concerning ownership, transactions, taxes, etc., and an indirect connection through ethics—such as enjoining trustworthiness, justice, beneficence, and prohibiting theft, betrayal, bribery, etc.[5] In his view, in Islam the economic school determines the direction and path of the science of economics, while the science of economics serves the economic system and shapes it under varying conditions.

He also advocated systematic fiqh (fiqh-i nizām-mand) in the fiqh of economics and held distinctive views on topics such as money and banking, insurance, taxation, public resources (anfāl), and the economic powers of government.

Contemporary Jurisprudence: Did he have a particular method for deducing economic rulings?

Farahani Fard: Yes. In his view, the general principles of Islam are formulated in such a way as to be amenable to ijtihād. Ijtihād means discovering and applying fixed general principles to particular and changing cases. True ijtihād is the driving force of Islam; it imparts dynamism to the religion without any abrogation or alteration of God’s ruling—“What Muḥammad declared lawful remains lawful until the Day of Resurrection, and what he declared unlawful remains unlawful until the Day of Resurrection.”[6]

Elsewhere he says: the inexhaustibility of the sources of religion and the inclusion of reason among Islamic sources have made true ijtihād easier. This principle facilitates the delineation of the Islamic economic system.[7]

Shahid Motahhari advocated deduction within the framework of systematic fiqh. While respecting the fatwās of the learned fuqahā of the Islamic world, he did not consider the conventional method of deduction sufficient, for fuqahā generally confine deduction to rulings, whereas in his view Islam is not limited to fiqh rulings but encompasses doctrines, ethics, and social teachings as well.

Noteworthy points in his jurisprudential deductions include:

• The role of time and place in fiqh: Islam possesses fixed and eternal principles that apply in all times and places, yet it also has variable rulings that change according to time and place.
• Attention to the purposes of the sharīʿa (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa): every ruling has a purpose; understanding it can be effective in deducing new rulings.

[1] Mortażā Moṭahharī, Nizām-i Iqtiṣādī-yi Islām, pp. 414–423.

[2] In the professor’s writings the term is mostly “social justice,” but his examples pertain to economic justice; in any case, economic justice is one dimension of social justice in its broader sense.

[3] Nahj al-Balāgha, trans. Shahīdī, Sermon 3 (Shiqsḥiqiyya).

[4] Ibid., pp. 414–423.

[5] Ibid., vol. 20, p. 402.

[6] Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 1, p. 58.

[7] Ibid., vol. 3, p. 197; Khātamiyyat, p. 139.