KEY ISSUES IN ESTABLISHING ISLAMIC ECONOMIC
SYSTEM IN CONTEMPORARY MUSLIMS SETTING - 1
Published in Frontiers and Mechanics of Islamic Economics,
pages 77-82 which was First printed 1988/ 1409 A.H.
Edited by: Rafiqul Islam Molla, Abdul Rashid Moten,
Sule Ahmed Gusau and Abubakar Allyu Gwandu.
University of Sokoto 1988/1409 AH).
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[Introduction] [The Standard] [ The Issues Involved] Introduction The Fourteenth Century Hijra found the Muslim Ummah on the fringe of collapse.
Politically and militarily impotent, economically dependent, intellectually
sterile, the Ummah had been
disfigured beyond recognition. Scattered and locked as it were, in Nation States, it is literally the
captive of imperialism. Its human and material resources had been plundered,
its development arrested and its members condemned to poverty, pain, disease
and hunger. Understanding imperialism in and its methods is essential for an
appreciation of our contemporary Muslim setting. One of the most devilish and
most effective methods of imperialism is to effect the growth of general frame
of mind, through the educational system, which would despise the bases of
Islamic life
(38). This frame of mind nurtured by that educational system is
what essentially paved the way for the ascendancy of Western thoughts, ideas
and institutions in the Ummah. Thus the Ummah mutually came
to be characterized not by Islam with its system of law, politics, and economy but
rather by western institutions of law,
politics, economy, education and even delinquency - music, crime, drug peddling
etc. The central role the imperial educational system played in creating such a
tragic situation is, in fact, the core of the malaise of the Ummah. It is the breeding ground of the disease. The schools and the educational system are the laboratories where Muslim youths are kneaded and cut, where their consciousness is molded to a caricature of the West(39). These Educational Institutions (including those labeled Islamic) could not but produce, in the apt words of one scholar, deluded
hybrids whose fame of reference is always a foreign ideology (40). Thus the Ummah came to have the misfortune of
being led or misled, as indeed it were,
by inept and timid products who possess neither vision nor courage nor more
consciousness. The Qur'an reminds us of this category of people (xcv:5). The
ruling elite, as they are sometimes called, once produced, further compound the
problem of the Ummah Failure to feed ourselves, despite the vast human and agricultural resources we have been blessed with, the continued importation of food and other essential items and the resultant effects that follow, are yet the other symptoms of the serious nature of imperialist methods. The increasing amount of foreign debt always leaves us worse off than we were five years. Senegal used half of its GNP to service its foreign debt. Foreign debt and technology has totally ruined Sudan’s agriculture and economy and brought the whole nation to the brink of starvation. ‘Armed robber who endangers property and life, the destitute who roams the street during looking for sustenance, the “good evening girls (mostly non‑Muslim though)” who roams the street at night looking for customers who are forced out of their homes at the faire economic system the Ummah operates’, to quote one Scholar, represent yet another verdict on our contemporary setting. One could go on. However, the current resurgence has already begun to shake the shaky foundation our contemporary setting. It represents not only a rebellion against imposed west models ‑ political, economic and cultural ‑ but more fundamentally it represents the Muslim people's search for a Order which ensures justice to human beings in all aspects life and seeks the ideological fulfillment of the Ummah. This quest for their destiny has made them more conscious of their ideological and historical identity and has brought them back to their original source ‑ Islam. Our recent efforts are obviously manifestations of this increasing quest which the growing awareness has nurtured. The Ummah will, Insha Allah, suceed in this march and regain the lost glory as Allah is with the Steadfast (ii:153). |
