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Islamic economics in the world


Between the 8th and 12th centuries, the Muslim world developed many advanced concepts, techniques and use in production, investment, finance, economic development, taxation, property use such as Hawala, an early informal value transfer system, Islamic trusts known as waqf, systems of contract relied upon by merchants, a widely circulated common currency, cheques, promissory notes, early contracts, bills of exchange, (mufawada), advanced agricultural techniques, high literacy rates, and enlightened capture and use of slaves.

Specific Islamic concepts involving money, property, taxation, charity included

These concepts, like others in Islamic law and jurisprudence, came from the "prescriptions, anecdotes, examples, and words of the Prophet, all gathered together and systematized by commentators according to an inductive, casuistic method." Sometimes other sources such as al-urf, (the custom), al-'aql (reason) or al-ijma (consensus of the jurists) were employed. In addition, Islamic law has developed areas of law that correspond to secular laws of contracts and torts.

Self-described "Islamic economics" emerged in the 1940s, and as of 2004 "Islamic Banks" have been established in over 70 countries, and interest has been banned in three: Pakistan, Iran and the Sudan.

One economic policy of Muhammad was a ban on charging fees and rents and a ban on permanent buildings in the market of Medina - only tents were allowed there. This is said to have helped poor traders.

The Hawala, an early informal value transfer system, has its origins in classical Islamic law, and is mentioned in texts of Islamic jurisprudence as early as the 8th century. Hawala itself later influenced the development of the agency in common law and in civil laws such as the aval in French law and the avallo in Italian law. The words aval and avallo were themselves derived from Hawala. The transfer of debt, which was "not permissible under Roman law but became widely practiced in medieval Europe, especially in commercial transactions", was due to the large extent of the "trade conducted by the Italian cities with the Muslim world in the Middle Ages." The agency was also "an institution unknown to Roman law" as no "individual could conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent." In Roman law, the "contractor himself was considered the party to the contract and it took a second contract between the person who acted on behalf of a principal and the latter in order to transfer the rights and the obligations deriving from the contract to him." On the other hand, Islamic law and the later common law "had no difficulty in accepting agency as one of its institutions in the field of contracts and of obligations in general."


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