Islam and the Economic Challenge By M. Umer Chapra. Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation and IIIT, 1992, 428 pp.

Abstract

I consider the task of reviewing this book an honor as well as a challenge.
My task is made even more difficult and the challenge moE significant
when I read excellent reviews from both intellectual spectra,
Western as well as Islamic. From the West, Kenneth Boulding, an eminent
behavioral scientist and social economist, expresses his admiration
both for the author’s readable style as well as the depth and the maturity
of his knowledge when he writes:
This is an excellent work . . . His understanding is quite
sophisticated. At the same time his style is clear and he writes
with humanity and a very deep concern for the welfare of the
human race.
From the East, the book has already received and incorporated comments
and suggestions from a number of economists at the forefront of
research in Islamic economics, among them Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqui and
Professor Khurshid Ahmad. The latter economist has very succinctly summarized
not only his own views but also thm of other Islamic scholars
when, in the foreword, he writes:
Dr. Chapra has dealt with the subject as a trained social scientist
and objective Islamic scholar. His grasp of the contemporary
systems and their problems is thorough and incisive, his presentation
of Islamic economic order is concise and convincing. His
balanced critique of the western systems as well as that of the
contemporary Islamic society is presented in a style that is
scholarly yet simple, clear and prescriptive. . . . Dr. Chapra has
clearly demonstrated that well being can not be attained through
the pursuit of material possessions alone and that efficiency and
equity can become operational concepts only if they are redefined
in the context of their linkage to moral values and socioeconomic
structures.”