Abstract In Islamic thought, the economy is considered an integral part of the spiritual expression of human consciousness in the mortal world. Islamic economics, as a modern discipline, is related to the anti-colonial movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Scholars of the time envisioned an economic system different from that of the colonising powers and found the epistemological foundations for one in the Islamic tradition. Although Islamic banking has come far from its inception, Islamic economic philosophy has become a niche categorisation in the larger global economic order. Discourses in Islamic economics have been constructed against neoliberal economics, within the ontology and epistemology of modernity. The Islamisation of knowledge project has utilised a singular reliance on fiqh to halal-wash orthodox neoliberal economic institutions, products, and relations to assimilate them into Islamic economics in a superficial “Islamic” dressing of neoliberal economic paradigms. This paper argues that a decolonial stance in Islamic economics and a focus on epistemologies indigenous to Islamic discourse can eliminate this issue. Decoloniality in Islamic economics must counter the traditional dominance of European episteme and the financial interest in capitalist economics within the Islamic world by norm-setting entities such as the state of Saudi Arabia.
Mariam Khawar (Thu,) studied this question.