A Qur'anic Model for a Universal Economic Theory

8 Mohammad E. Biraima
of output that is produced by them. The pleasures that have been faired in the eyes of
men as v(2) says include all the economic pleasures that men derive from the use of
wealth as defined above.
The social input, on the other hand, is disaggregated into women and children. The
term women here refers mainly to the pleasures involved in the sexual relationship
between man and woman as an independent source of man's test. While the term
children here refers to the pleasures derived from having children as a result of the first
relationship.
Using the partial method of analysis, I will, henceforth, ignore this social factor in
the MPC and concentrate on its economic dimension, not due to any misjudgment as to
the importance of the former as to the need to be true to the title of the paper. Hence we
state the following first conclusion in this paper implied by the analysis of the previous
sections.
Conclusion (1)
The economic domain of man's life is one of the main areas where the test that
underlies the MPC runs its course. It is a test based on whether man will manage the
economic resources on earth such that he fulfills the conditions for thankfulness to the
owner of these resources.
This is an important conclusion that should always be kept in mind as we proceed
in this paper. This conclusion also makes vivid the irony involved in the contrast
between the profundity of the economic test involved in the MPC and the trifle
approach of man to his economic life. As a matter of fact the economic factor is much
more pervasive in the structure of the MPC than our conclusion states, and it seems to
dominate all other factors save the human self, which is the lab within which the test is
carried out, and, therefore, a necessary condition for all factors. It suffices to say at this
stage that it is primarily wealth and children, in the Qur'anic sense, that are responsible
for the creation of societies as we will argue later. Therefore, all the ramifications of the
MPC as manifested in the diverse social phenomena we observe today, and the
challenge they pose to man's life must be traced back to these two factors. But in the
Holy Qur'an the economic factor always dominates that of children, whether as a test or
as a historical explanation for the doom of past nations. Further more while the nature
of the sexual and parental factor remains clear and has under gone no significant
development over human history, the changes in the quantity, quality, form, and
diversity of the economic factor over history are phenomenal. Moreover, there seems to
be no limits to this development in the economic domain of the MPC, and as a result to
the complexity and perplexity of human life.
The concept of thankfulness emerges as the most fundamental economic concept
in the economic ideology of the Holy Qur'an. Thus the analysis that will be undertaken
later in this paper for the concept of thankfulness should give important insights into the
nature of the Islamic economic actions and their implied institutional set up.