Methodology of economics secular versus Islamic

Abstract

The author discusses the issues arising in the methodology of economics and highlights - in a unique comparative style - the bases on which the Islamic and the secular dispensations come out. It is found that the Islamic and the secular methodologies of economics have divergent ideological bases, value frames, meanings of basic concepts, behavioral rules, and the procedures for erecting theories and installing their verification procedures. These differences also condition the nature and scope of the two methodologies and the subject of their economic disciplines. The author also outlines the policy implications of the two methodologies on current world affairs and demonstrates that Islamic economics - as a discipline - has a superior (and also a supervising) quality (haymana) that is lacking in secular economics. This result arises from the logical relationship between the Islamic and the secular worldviews and their impact on the methodology of economics. As such, the subject of Islamic economics - and its future development - shall always remain epistemologically 'greater than' and will overwhelmingly 'overpower' the subject of secular economics from all theoretical positions and aspects.