On the Notion of Economic Justice in Contemporary Islamic Thought

In the massive contemporary literature that has come to be known as “Islamic economics,”1the claim is repeatedly made that an Islamic economic system would achieve a greater degree of economic justice than existing capitalist and socialist systems. An Islamic system, it is said, would be free, on the one hand, of the exploitation and severe inequalities that characterize capitalism, and on the other, of the class struggles and intolerable restrictions that are the hallmarks of socialism.2