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The issues of halal economics were first raised at the First International Conference on Islamic Economics, which took place in Makkah al-Mukarramah nearly a half century ago in 1976. I was not there, but I have heard so much about this historic event ever since my undergraduate days at the International Islamic University Malaysia. This Conference was truly a watershed in the development of Islamic economics in theory and practice. Hardly a session went by in the latest iteration of this conference, the fifteenth International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance (15^th ICIEF) which took place at the end of February 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, without at least one mention being made to the Makkah conference. The scholars at the 1976 Conference, included M. Nejatullah Siddiqi, Khurshid Ahmed, Mahmoud Abu Saud, M. Anas Zarqa, M. Umar Chapra, Mabid Ali Al-Jarhi, Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr, Monzer Kahf, Ziauddin Ahmed, F.R. Faridi, Sanahuddin Zaim, S.M. Hassanuzzaman Mohammad Sakr and AbdulHamid Abu Sulayman, who would go on to become Rector of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) – all will forever be known as the pioneers of contemporary Islamic Economics. And the result of the conference were resolutions that effectively established Islamic economics, and later finance, as a contemporary scientific discipline. 

A few participants from the first conference – now in their eighties – were even in attendance at this fifteenth edition. Yet a spectre lingered over each invocation and memory of 1976, the ultimate question that is not easily answered: what has become of Islamic economics since then? One of the great pioneers of Islamic economics, M. Nejatullah Siddiqi, gave an answer to the query a few years ago. In short, after almost fifty years, Islamic economics still has a long way to go. In a relatively critical look at the state of Islamic economics, Siddiqi emphasised the lack of new ideas. Instead of creating an alternative to the economic order that is, frankly, destroying the whole planet, we have instead found a way to recreate neoliberal capitalism in the rose-coloured glasses of an overly fiqh-oriented vessel. It also does not help narrow the concept of shariáh as ‘law’. I could add that an overly legal/fiqh-oriented understanding of the maqasid al-shari’ah (the higher objectives of the shariah) has also not delivered the promised alternative solutions so greatly needed by humanity. Embargos, sanctions, booms, busts, global financial crises, supply-chain disruptions, and a global pandemic later and the dominance of Western neoliberal economics remains untarnished at the top of the hill. Those who wish to compete in this global economic order must abide its rules. And we, the Islamic economists, stand upon a compromise of our ideals holding the works of classical and modern economists in one hand and the Holy Qur’an and other works of past Muslim scholars in the other, wondering if we are any the wiser for having read the lot. What is lacking is the genuine integration of the two.

You did not need to sit through the conference to know we have still, after all these years, a long way to go. Yes, the field has expanded. Indeed, we are global, but in our growth, have we witnessed development and contribution to well-being? In organising the fifteenth conference, we tried to push the bar with the theme ‘driving the agenda for a sustainable humane economy’. If the revolution is not happening tonight, perhaps we can at least start with a little reform. The Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim, who opened the Kuala Lumpur conference, having rolled up his sleeves and gotten into the thick of it over the first year of his premiership, has noted on many occasions that the revolutionary reform needed in many Muslim countries, if done all at once would most certainly fail. Instead, the tasks of islah (reform) and tajdid (renewal) require careful and thoughtful planning and execution. Slow and steady indeed wins the race. The theme emphasises three things. First, action. The agenda is an action-oriented one to create a viable roadmap to take theory to practice, often a serious pitfall for the academic attempting change beyond the ivory tower. Second, sustainable. This has become one of the key buzz words behind the spirit of our times. And although it is thrown around so much it is noticing a diminishing return on its meaning, it is a value that is not only ethical, but existential in our world of global boiling. In Kuala Lumpur, we feel this along with many of our brothers and sisters throughout the equatorial Muslim nations. The third element of the theme is humane. The idea is not new, but the circumstances have changed. Humane economics was and is a critical part of Anwar Ibrahim’s vision for Malaysia, the ummah, and the world. He first wrote of the concept in his 1996 work The Asian Renaissance. And although back then, when he was Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, there was an attempt to plant seeds that could grow into the institutions necessary to see his humane economy come about, the powers who were threatened by his rise saw to his fall from grace in that fateful year of 1998. They also attempted a systematic erasure of Anwar Ibrahim from Malaysian history. Much of what he started then that has borne some fruit – albeit partially today – has no awareness that it was his diligent efforts that saw to their existence. However, man plans, but the All-Mighty Allah disposes. Now that he is Prime Minister, he has the best chance of actualising the philosophy he has developed over his last forty-odd years in public service – a significant segment of that time spent powerless in the contemplative environment of solitary confinement in prison. So, today there are two prongs to the work ahead for the Prime Minister: rewrite history while also carrying on the good work. Easier said than done. Not to mention he inherited a bleeding economy ravaged by decades of corruption, less than transparent budgetary allocations, and a prolonged lockdown that has pushed the Malaysian economy and people to the brink.

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