Talk:Capitalism and Islam

Cleanup

For background information, please see RFC/U and Cleanup. With 8 edits, User:Jagged 85 is the main contributor to this article along with two other users. The article has been - heavily - tagged for 1.5 years. The issues are a repeat of what had been exemplarily shown here, here, here, here or here. I remove all contents added by Jagged85, mainly this. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:05, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Islamic capitalism: a contradiction in terms

I request the removal of all contents and the redirect of the article to Islamic economics in the world on the grounds that Islam is strongly opposed to capitalism to such an extent that "Islamic capitalism" is a contradiction in terms.

• Argumentation:

At the heart of capitalism lies the capital which is accumulated by interest rates. Islam is a religion based on the Quran. But, this is the point, the Quran actually prohibits interest in no unclear terms:

“O you who have believed, do not consume interest, doubled and multiplied, but fear God that you may be successful. And fear the Fire, which has been prepared for the disbelievers.” (Quran 3:130-131)

“Those who consume interest cannot stand [on the Day of Resurrection] except as one stands who is being beaten by Satan into insanity. That is because they say, ’Trade is [just] like interest.’ But God has permitted trade and has forbidden interest. So whoever has received an admonition from his Lord and desists may have what is past, and his affair rests with God. But whoever returns [to dealing in interest or usury] those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein. God destroys interest and gives increase for charities. And God does not like every sinning disbeliever.” (Quran 2:275-276)

All this does not mean that capitalism did or does not exist in the Islamic world. But the point is where it exists it is not because of but despite the Quran. There is no more Islamic capitalism than there is armed pacifism. Therefore, the whole concept of capitalism inspired by or based on Islam is to be refuted and does not constitute an encyclopedic entry. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:42, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is entirely clear that capitalism is unavoidably based on interest, and thus incompatible with ISlam. Certanily, all the nominally-perfectly-orthodox Islamic businesses would disagree.

I'd argue for getting rid of this article for another reason: it is largely pointless. The Islamic world operates a capitalist system much like any other, and seems to either conveniently ignore the prohibitions on interest, or makes various transparent work-arounds. So the article of interest would be Islam and interest which ought to talk about the prohibition, how much it is believed, how it is worked around, and so on. Do we not have an entirely similar Christianity and usury article? After all, early (?15th C?) Christian societies has exactly similar problems: usury was prohibited, people tried to forbid it, but it was necessary (I have in mind that this is why the Jews became a financial task, because (being non-Christian) they could be allowed to do this hated task) William M. Connolley (talk) 12:20, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Riba seems to have about the kind of blather you'd expect: yes its forbidden, err, then it disappears into a pile of weasel words I didn't bother to read and then can't quite bring itself to say yes of course it is tolerated because necessary William M. Connolley (talk)

What do you think of moving the page to Islam and capitalism? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:50, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The proposed move makes sense to me. Islam and capitalism could take content from Islamic banking, Islamic capitalism, and Riba. These articles have a significant amount of coverage overlap, and undue weight/uncited content. Some of the more dubious text could be cleared out if these articles were made more focused and less redundant. Dialectric (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Would you agree to do the merge, Dialectric? I have also already moved Islamic socialism to Socialism and Islam. Generally, I find these "and" titles often helpful in being much less prejudicing and more geared towards an open outcome discussion. With Capitalism and Islam we would not need to tackle the impossible task of determining to what extent capitalism can actually be Islamic but just state a relationship between these two, however deep that may be. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm still unconvinced that this article needs to exist, or what it is about. As currently written, it appears to be about the economy during the early days. Is there really any need for such an article? It would be better as an "economy" section in Islamic_Golden_Age. By contrast, Islamic banking is a real page William M. Connolley (talk) 12:22, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

After looking over the history of this article, WMC has a point - this article has never been more than a survey of economic activity in the Caliphate period. The content that remains was at one time spammed across at least 4 articles. The phrase 'Islamic Capitalism' does not appear to have much scholarly usage. I agree that this article should go. A more useful article, and title would be, as far as historical economics, Economics of Medieval Islam or something similar, but this would require a lot of work and better sources. In response to GPM, I am willing to work on a merge, but WMC's point about Islamic Banking being an actual separate thing is valid, and I would like to get a clearer sense of which articles to merge, and what titles to focus on. Dialectric (talk) 05:35, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me briefly outline my position in view of your two last edits. If the current article is proposed for AfD, I will support it, but given the stout inclusionist nature of WP these days I believe a positive outcome to be nearly impossible. If some kind of merge under a new title is preferred instead, I would not collaborate, but support it too. If neither action is taken, I'll be bold and move the article over to "Capitalism and Islam" and then move on. Gun Powder Ma (talk)19:42, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

rajam (talk) 05:12, 7 August 2011 (UTC)I agree with Ma: Simply because interest is forbidden in Islam does not mean that the Islamic world has no capitalistic activity. A capitalistic mode of production, after all, is more than just the interest system. This article will be better if renamed "Islam and Capitalism," as has been suggested by other editors The content right now is pretty sketchy as it only explains that capitalism existed in the Muslim world before it was introduced in Europe. I think a better article would explain the ramifications of Muslim life in capitalism and provide a discussion of current state of capitalism in the Islamic world.

The broad claims of this article

Are the broad claims of this article supported by any standard history of capitalism or any standard history of Islam? Let's look at the sources supporting the broadest claims:

• Historical Materialism has a Marxist POV. I have read the specific article and it reflects the Marxist POV of this journal.
• Middle East Research and Information Project has an anti-West POV. JSTOR does not have issue cited in this article. There's no hard copy in the New York Public Library.
• Trends in Biotechnology(?) is cited to show that there were lawsuits in 8th–12th century Islam.

In the first article above, it seems to me that author makes a leap from the accumulation of wealth in trade goods (apart from state) to call that capitalism or proto-capitalism. patsw (talk) 20:50, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Does this article have any value at all? I'd just redirect it to something sane: capitalism, perhaps William M. Connolley (talk) 22:05, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

It turns out that I own standard texts on the history of Islam and the history of capitalism. I can summarize their views. I am somewhat sympathetic to the claims that Islam had a higher level of development of a merchant class apart from the state, relative to Europe prior to the 13th Century, but that would make it a proto-mercantilism, and not a proto-capitalism. This article might be salvageable on that basis with a rename. patsw (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

If you have texts, feel free. This article contains, as far as I can see, little or nothing that is worth saving, so don't worry about overwriting or heavily reworking it William M. Connolley (talk) 22:39, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I would make this page a redirect but i don't know where to send it J8079s (talk) 05:07, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Luizpuodzius

Vale a pena traduzir? 187.20.115.209 (talk) 18:07, 30 April 2022 (UTC)