Towards A Unified Zakat System

Co-operation Council, location, climate, borders,population, socio-political and economic backgrounds.Chapter three reviews the main Islamic principles andhighlights the economic system as prescribed by Islam. Thisis important in order to underline the grounds upon whichZakat accounting is based. This chapter introduces the mainfeatures of the Islamic economic system. Islamic teachingscover spiritual, social, economic and political aspects ofsociety. Inevitably, Islamic economics is based on a setof value systems established by the primary sources ofjurisprudence in Islam. The chapter also reviews somedefinitions in Islamic economics and the Islamic economicsystem. In addition, it discusses the main goals of Islamiceconomics, including some of its main foundations:wellbeing; social and economic justice; and, the equitabledistribution of income. It provides a brief description ofthe main sources of economic thought in Islam. These aresimilar to the sources of jurisprudence since they are bothparts of the Shariah's objectives. The principles of unityand brotherhood are briefly outlined, together with theprohibition of riba in Islam, the associated moral valuesand their relationship with economic realities. It is shownthat the prohibition of riba is the main difference8