A Qur'anic Model for a Universal Economic Theory

12 Mohammad E. Biraima
Ibn AI-Qayyim then goes on to say that God associates with the tranquil self an
angel who always encourages it to be righteous and discourages it from wrong-doing.
However, the most potent weapon for the tranquil self against wrong-doing is its faith
(iman) and the acquired attributes and values through which faith manifests it self. He
mentioned the following attributes among others: sincerity, dependence on God,
repentance, jealousy for God, courage, verility, honesty, mercy, kindness. shyness,
easiness, contentment, piety, generosity, helpfulness, asceticism, self-control,
forgiveness, nobleness, endurance, wisdom, ... etc.
The wrong-doing self has Satan as its associate who always uses his seductive
devices to encourage the self to follow its whims and indulge into worldly pleasures.
Due to the indulgence of whims the human self acquires certain attributes consistent
with such indulgence, e.g., greed, miserliness, wickedness, wastefulness, hypocracy,
jealousy, envy, hatred, conceit. arrogance, recklessness, mockery, lying. deceit,
cowardice, ... etc.
The same external action would be good or bad depending on whether it emanates
from the value framework of the tranquil self or that of the wrong-doing self. This is an
area of human psychology where most people get deceived by their selves because of
the subtlety of the motives involved. Thus the following actions may appear to external
observation the same although the domains of the self from which they emanate are
different: humility and humiliation, patience and hardness, competition and envy,
forgiveness and weakness, dignity and arrogance, courage and daring, seriousness and
cowardice, generosity and wastefulness, gift and bribery, economy and miserliness,
caution and suspicion, anger for God and anger for one's self, strength of fulfilling the
injunction of God and tyranny, advice and backbiting, confidence and negligence,
showing the bounty of God and using it for arrogance, happiness of heart and happiness
of the self, love for God and love with God, dependence on God and fatalism, the
inspiration of an angel and that of the devil, advice and reproach, initiative and
hastiness, ... etc.
All these pairs of action are undistinguishable to the uninitiated observing eye and
even to the actor himself, yet from an Islamic perspective one type of action has its
motives from the tranquil self and therefore pleases God, the other type has its motives
from the wrong-doing self and hence displeases God. Ibn AI-Qayyim gives a thorough
distinction between each of these contrasted actions and the attributes of the self from
which each emanates.
Al-Ghazali does not differ from Ibn Al-Qayyim any substantial way with respect
to the above analysis, but he is more concerned with the characteristics of the human
self that give rise to actions some of which are consistent with God's pleasure, while
others are not. For him, the concepts of self, soul, heart and reason as used in the Holy
Qur'an all refer to one thing: That light divine spirit which God has made the essence of
man. This divine spirit is the conscious and knowing part of the human being. It is also
the one that is addressed by God and will be accountable to Him for the deeds of the
individual.