Open Research Projects

See Also Topics for Research, which organizes the material below by different themes -- Both are concerned with areas where Islamic Economics differs radically from conventional views and therefore provides fruitful areas for research.

Pursuit of Wealth: The idea that an important goal of life is the acquisition of wealth is in opposition to Islamic teachings, which stress spending on others. The conflict between Islamic and Western ideas on this issue plays out in many ways in many different dimensions of life. A lot of research ideas relating to this topic are worth exploring.

Positive/Normative Distinction: The emergence of Logical Positivism as the dominant philosophy, and then its spectacular crash, is one of the most important stories of the twentieth century. That there is a positive normative distinction is no longer believed by philosophers, but the news has not reached economists. This leads to lots of possible research ideas, where we expose the values built into conventional economics and contrast them with Islamic values. see also Value Laden Economics in Critiques of Conventional Economics.

Humans Are Infinitely Precious: Humans are the best of creations, and killing one is like killing all of humanity. Islam teaches us that humans cannot be valued or purchased in earthly treasures -- the life and wealth of a person is the price of Jannah. This contrasts with the discounted value of earnings as the price of human life in conventional theory. Numerous research ideas arise from this contrast between Islamic and Conventional Economics.

Growth is Harmful: One of the central ideas of economists is to pursue growth as a means of solving the central problem of economics: "scarcity". There are many lines of research which lead to the conclusion that pursuing growth of income/wealth does not help, or else is actually harmful. The Islamic preference for simple lifestyles is a useful antidote to conventional emphasis on ever increasing standard-of-living.

Profits vs. Social Responsibility: Milton Friedman argued that business should only concern themselves with profits. Corporations are not human and therefore have no social responsibility. In effect, it is immoral for them to concern themselves with social issues. It is this naked greed which has led to the financial collapse of Wall Street.

Scarcity versus the Bounty of God: The real economic problem is distribution. There are enough material resources to take care of the need of everybody, but achieving this goal requires developing the spirit of sympathy cooperation, fellow feeling. The Quran urges us to spend our excess wealth on others less fortunate. Thus the fundamental economic problem is moral, not material.

Critiques of Conventional Economics: There are so many critiques that this deserves a separate page. Critiques are not very useful in providing guidance for developing viable alternatives. However, because many people have been brainwashed into believing neoclassical theories, these critiques provide a method of undoing the damage.

Intentions Matter Vs. Insvisible Hand: One of the central contentions of Adam Smith was that people act with selfish intentions but produce socially beneficial results. Islamic teachings assert the opposite. Islamic business should be run with intention to provide benefit to society, with profits being an intermediary, a means to achieving this goal -- the business will not be able to survive without profits and hence will be unable to provide the service which is the goal. This is a complete reversal of ways of thinking taught to MBA's.

Poverty and Hunger: These should be at the center of any Islamic Economics curriculum. Lots of reserach is needed here to develop ideas.

Individuals Versus Community: The idea of the Ummah as one body need to be promoted, in complete contrast to the idea of the society as no more than a collection of individuals.

Generosity versus Greed: Economists argue that Greed is natural and useful for society. However, this is not so.

The building blocks of empathy in children are evident in the very young. From birth, babies have an ability to respond to the emotions of others. For example, babies can imitate the facial expressions of parents and caregivers, or burst into tears if they hear another baby crying. At three months, they respond differently to happy or sad faces (Izard, et al., 1995). One-year-olds show signs of distress when shown videotapes of other children crying (Ungerer, et al., 1990). A child will begin to show concern for others at about one year of age. In a well regarded study, researchers trained mothers to observe and record their children's emotional responses to others, including the mothers' owned feigned states of sadness and joy. Researchers also visited once a month to record their own observations. The findings are noteworthy: at 13-15 months, greater than 50% of the children tried to hug, pat, or touch another person who was distressed ("prosocial behavior"), responding to perceived emotions and trying to make the other person feel better; at 18-20, months the responsiveness increased and was expressed in a variety of helping behaviors, such as sharing goodies, trying to bring bandages or blankets, etc.; at 23-25 months they revealed even more empathy as all but one child in the study showed concern as well as helping behaviors, mainly toward mothers but even including strangers (Zahn-Waxler, et al., 1992).