By
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
JULY 1, 2001
Being
A Paper Presented At The 2nd
International Seminar On Islamic Banking & Finance Organized By Ahmed
Zakari & Co. (Chartered Accountants) At Abuja
Sheraton Hotel & Towers.
30th June & 1st July 2001.
BASIC
NEEDS AND REDISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE IN ISLAM - THE PANACEA TO POVERTY IN NIGERIA.[1] The
title of the paper given me by the organizers of this seminar was "Basic
Needs and Distributive Justice in Islam-the Panacea to Poverty in Nigeria".
I have taken the liberty, for reasons that should be made apparent presently, of
adding the prefix "re" to
the word "distributive". In miniature, I shall argue that distribution of resources is in the hands of Allah (S.W.T.).
However, He has given firm injunctions on their redistribution. Consequently, widespread poverty consequent upon the
failure of human beings to comply with this injunction is a purely human matter,
for which God and His Prophet (S.A.W.) have no blame. In
this paper, I intend to achieve four things: First I will conceptualize "redistributive
justice"; next I will ground this concept in general principles from the
Qur'an and Sunnah. Third I will trace its loss through an excursion into
philosophy and history. The analysis in this section will rely on the
epistemology of the French philosopher Michel Foucault; finally, I will propose
a way forward which is based on Laclau and Mouffe's concept of the "Radical
Democratic Imaginary”. Very
often speakers on the subject matter of "Distributive Justice" in
Islam tend to give lectures on Zakat -
its meaning and the institutional framework for collection and distribution. I
begin by stating that while Zakat is
an institutionalized vehicle for achieving redistribution of income (as are
inheritance laws and the guidelines for sharing booty and spoils etc), the
subject matter of this paper transcends it. I have discussed Zakat
in another paper.[2]
I will therefore not make Zakat the
subject of this talk even though mention of it must be made in passing. In any
case, I should refer any one with questions on Zakat to an excellent pamphlet, A
- Z manual on Zakat, published by the organizers of this seminar (Ahmed
Zakari & Co.). You will also notice that there is a paper dealing
specifically with Zakat and Awqaf
in this conference. To
speak of redistributive justice in Islam is to take off from two essential
premises. The first is that the redistribution of income or wealth may be just
or unjust. The second is that Islam does have established principles defining
what constitutes a "just" redistribution. But
these premises lead to further building blocks for our problematic, especially
when viewed within the context of a historic nation-state. The distribution of
economic resources (or the ownership or lack of it of the means of production)
is the primary basis for dividing human society into socio-economic classes.
When we consider in addition that ownership of economic resources both
facilitates and is facilitated by control of state machinery and civil society,
we find ourselves faced with the impossibility of discussing "distributive
justice" without reference to the class structure of our society. In other
words, a meaningful discussion of distributive or redistributive justice in
Islam particularly when applied to a post - colonial, capitalistic economy (and
I use the term deliberately) like Nigeria's, must locate the concept squarely
within the framework of a generic political sociology. The reason is simple:
money has no religion; nor indeed do hunger, unemployment and poverty. I will
therefore argue in this paper that any attempt to speak of "redistributive
justice" in Islam must recognize its essentially populist character. In so
doing we may well find that any process of Islamization that is not essentially
aimed at the economic empowerment of the popular masses falls short of the
Islamic ideal in this area. It
is natural that a discussion of this nature should begin with a selection of
verses from the Qur'an and Traditions of the prophet (S.A.W) which establish the
general principles of redistributive justice in Islam.[3]
In subsequent sections we should examine the crucial role of political ideology
in the interpretation and application of these principles. To
state here that Islam enjoins society to inculcate a spirit of brotherhood among
its members and to foster an egalitarian existence is to repeat the obvious.
However, one should still like to draw attention to a few verses and ahadith that are relevant to this discourse particularly since their
import is often missing in our literature. Allah
(S.W.T) says in Suratul Hashr:
"That which Allah gives as spoil unto His messenger from the people of the
townships, it is for Allah and His messenger and for the next of kin and the
orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, that
wealth does not continue to circulate merely among your rich. And whatsoever
the messenger brings to you take it. And whatsoever he forbids abstain from it.
And keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is stern in reprisal". [4]. Also,
in Suratul Taubah, Allah condemns
rabbis and monks among Jews and Christians who "hoard gold and silver"
in very strong terms. "O
you who believe! Many of the (Jewish) rabbis and the (Christian) monks devour
the wealth of mankind wantonly and debar (men) from the way of Allah. They who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah,
unto them give tidings of a painful doom. On the day when it will all be heated
in the fire of hell, and their foreheads and their flanks and their backs will
be branded therewith: "here is that which you hoarded for yourselves. Now
taste of what you used to hoard".[5] It
seems clear to me that these verses serve sufficient notice on the compulsion on
Muslims to redistribute wealth and ensure that is it not concentrated in a few
hands. Along with other Qur'anic verses we also find here strong prohibition
against acquisition of wealth through "wanton" or illegitimate means
like corruption. In the language of political economy, we would say the Qur'an
is explicit in prohibiting what Marx called "Primitive Accumulation"
in his "Theories of Surplus Value".
It is precisely this Primitive Accumulation that is the pastime of the Nigerian
elite - Muslim and Christian. The
Prophet (S.A.W) said in a hadith:
"He is not a true Muslim who eats his fill when his next door neighbour is
hungry".[6]
He also said: "He whom Allah has made an administrator over the affairs of
Muslims but remains indifferent to their needs and their poverty, Allah will
also be indifferent to his needs and his poverty".[7]
Finally, the Prophet of Allah said: "Any ruler who is responsible for the
affairs of Muslims but does not strive sincerely for their well being will not
enter paradise with them”.[8] The
Caliphs after him continued with this line. Umar's letter to Abu Musa and Ali's
letter to Malik Ashtar have remained primary sources for the ethics of public
policy. Sayyid Qutb in his Social Justice
in Islam has recorded many anecdotes from the lives of Abubakar, Umar I, Ali
and Umar II in this regard. The companion Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, generally
considered the first socialist in Islam, preached that it was unlawful for a
Muslim to possess wealth beyond the essential needs of his family, a position
which set him at loggerheads first with the Umayyad governor Mu'awiyah then with
the Caliph Uthman leading to his exile from Madinah. The
summary of this section is that although Allah has endowed human beings with
different capabilities and opportunities for generating wealth, he has placed
upon them the responsibility for redistributing this wealth to ensure
elimination of poverty. The caliph Umar emphasized that every one, including the
Caliph, had an equal right to the wealth of the community.[9]
The caliph Ali was also reported to have said: "Allah has made it
obligatory on the rich to provide for the poor ….. If the poor are hungry or
naked or troubled, it is because the rich have deprived them, and it will be
proper for Allah to hold them responsible for this deprivation and to punish
them".[10] In
our society where the bulk of our resources is in the hands of the state (which
is a rentier state in an enclave economy) this principle has been completely
subverted with public officers growing rich on the public treasury. For many of
them, wealth is not a reflection of any kind of physical or intellectual
endowment. It only reflects the will to steal. Against
this background we see the error of those who insist that "poverty is from
God" and pretend that Islam does not give attention to material well being.
I have myself heard scholars argue that our masses should not expect material
upliftment as a "dividend” of Shariah. “The Shariah is the law of
Allah”, they say, “and people should obey leaders who implement it without
expecting material results”. Umar wrote in his letter to Abu Musa: "The
best of men in authority is he under whom people prosper and the worst of them
is he under whom people encounter hardships".[11] I
can go on and on including examples from the works of Shehu Dan Fodio and
particularly his brother Abdullahi.[12] But this should suffice to make the point. It
is taken for granted, based on the above, that the society which the Holy
Prophet (S.A.W) set up was guided by these principles. Muslim thought in all
areas is pervaded by the idea of returning to "the source", to the
"origin", to the Qur'an and Sunnah. Even in this, Muslim thought falls
squarely into a generic epistemology of history, which makes our analysis
amenable to a taxonomic exercise. The
most striking postulation of generic principles capturing the Muslim occupation
with the Sunnah of the Salaf I have read is found in the critique of historiography put up
by the French Philosopher Michel Foucault.[13]
In his article "Nietzsche, Genealogy and History", Foucault suggests
that conventional historiography is involved with the search for the origin. This incorporates three key postulates,
striking in their seemingly coincidental applicability to Muslim thought. 1.
It is an attempt to capture the essence of things in the form of
primordial truth. 2.
It assumes that things are most precious at the moment of their birth;
and 3.
The origin is the site of truth. In
Foucault's epistemology of historiography, the origin
presupposes an idyllic time before the Fall while the present acts as a
"rupture" from this ideal, providing a distance from this moment which
"history" attempts to bridge. As a result of this, "the reference
to the origin founds the present on a metaphysics of loss from the past, and
simultaneously introjects both that loss, and the possibility of its recovery,
into the present". Taking
off from these sound epistemological principles we can then ask: which was the
moment of rupture, the beginning of
what Foucault refers to as descent
(into this loss) and out of which we now seek an emergence,
a particular moment of arising in the context of relations of subjugation? Implicitly
or explicitly, Muslim thinkers seem to concede that this moment occurred thirty
years after the death of the Prophet (S.A.W.), with the end of the era of the
four rightly guided Caliphs (the Rashidun)
and the establishment of a monarchy which entrenched unequal relations in the
community. Sayyid Qutb was very clear on this point in his writings.[14]
Mu'tazilites, including Sunnis among them like Jassas were also explicit on it.[15]
Nomani and Rahnema argue that "the fragmentation and bifurcation of the
Islamic man, through the disintegration of Islam's holistic system started no
later than the death of the fourth rightly Guided Caliph".[16]
Perhaps the best summation of this "rupture" is to be found in the
words of the orientalist scholar Coulson: "while the Madinan Caliphs had
been the servants of the religion, the Umayyads were its masters".[17] It
therefore seems clear to me, and I have made this point elsewhere, that the
conversion of the Muslim Ummah into a
class - society and its government into a hereditary monarchy constituted a
crucial turning point in Islamic History, a descent
out of which every reformist tendency is at least in theory an attempt at emergence.
From the early monarchies to the Ottoman empire, colonialism and independence,
the egalitarian society of the salaf
was transformed into a “lineage - iqta'i”
and then “military - iqta' Any
attempt to reform Islam and revert to the “origin" or the
"source" which does not question the unequal relations that emerged
sequel to the point of "rupture" will only end up in disaster for the
vast majority of the Ummah. It
is precisely the failure to recognize this reality that is at the bottom of my
disagreement with neo-fundamentalist politics. Nigerian Muslim revival takes the
form of a robust return to the purity of worship ('Ibadah)
and the uncompromising application of Shariah Law. These twin foundations find
expression in a struggle against bid'ah
(or innovation) and an obsession with the hudud
or fixed punishments in the Islamic code. However, this commitment to the origin
is not accompanied by a progressive political ideology aimed at liberating
Muslim people from the poverty and illiteracy which has been their lot under our
new-breed Muslim leaders. In
a debate with fundamentalists on the pages of the Weekly
Trust[19]
as far back as 1998, I made the following assertion: "My
thesis is that there can be no programme for change, for transformation of the
life of the Muslim Ummah (if we mean
by Ummah the majority of the Ummah)
unless it is an integral part of a general programme of national transformation
which recognizes that the Muslims are a sub-set of the Nigerian Political
Economy who share the same traumas and deprivations as other sub-sets and that
progress lies in addressing this reality rather than chasing shadows". Criticizing
the romanticization of Islamic Revival, I wrote in the same article : “To
quote verses of the Qur’an and show that an Islamic ideal exists is to state
an obvious fact and participate in an exercise that is at best, glorified and
enlightened plagiarism. What we want to know is how the Qur’an can be applied
to Nigeria in 1998 and how we can liberate the Muslim masses and change their
objective, concrete and material conditions.” In
justifying my criticism of Islamic movements I had written: "Be
that as it may the Islamic Movement, as a political movement, is to be judged
primarily on the basis of its success in formulating an ideology, articulating a
programme and implementing, (successfully), strategies that promote the interest
of the Muslim Ummah. By Ummah, I do not mean Muslim Emirs and Chiefs, or Qadis
and Imams, or petit-bourgeois academics and middle-class elite, even though each
of these rightfully belongs to the Ummah. I mean rather the bulk of the Ummah,
those poor people called masses whose illiteracy, ill health, penury,
degradation and despair cry out for a liberator. What strategies have been
adopted to protect their interests? What publications have addressed their
plight? Where is their voice in public discourse? What education has been given
them that can help them change their pathetic circumstances?” The
sum total of my outlook, long before and since the commencement of the Shariah
project, is that: "Islamic
thought and civilization and the laws of motion governing Islamic society, can
not be entirely separated from human thought and civilization and the laws of
motion governing human society in general". This
outlook clearly sets me in an adversarial role with northern political leaders
and their intellectual props. The traditional dichotomization of society in
Islam is Muslim/Non-Muslim. Although Muslim socialists like the Iranian Ali
Shari'ati[20]
have tried to read into the Qur'an some form of reference to the
"masses" as "the people", it seems to me that this link is
rather tenuous. The traditional view that society is divided into believers and
non-believers is closer to the Qur'anic rendering as argued by Shari'ati's
critics among Iranian clerics.[21]
It also seems to me from the experience of some scholars take Ibn Hanbal and Ibn
Taimiya that this is their conception of Muslim society. It would seem plausible
to argue that the conception of people as in “People vs. State” or “People
vs. Elite” was not present in Muslim thought before Ibn Khaldun nor indeed in
western thought before Machiavelli. [22] However,
we must remember that the traditional view is grounded in the Qur’an and
Sunnah and the concepts employed reflected the egalitarian society of the
Prophet. Also, inspite of the rupture at the end of the Rashidun
period, the elite in the Muslim world retained a fundamental sense of the
"general interest" such that although society was in “descent”
from the ideal, it was far closer to that ideal in the period of the Umayyads
than the Abbasids and so on to this time. The
bifurcated conception of society into classes is a product of the manner Muslim
society has evolved in reality. The criticism leveled by the Ulama on this
breach of Muslim unity is therefore only valid in theory. In practice, it tends
to pretend away the alienation of the majority of Muslims by their leaders. This
pretence is the source of tension and ideological conflict. The fact is that the
freedom of the Nigerian Muslim to practice his religion and hold unto his faith
is guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution. To this extent, the poor farmer in
Maiduguri has more in common with the poor farmer in Ogoniland than with his
northern elite.[23] Unfortunately,
this point is missing on the people all over Nigeria. The elite in the
Niger-Delta shouting for "resource control" and those in the north
resisting it are not fighting for resources to benefit their "people".
"The people" in the north and the south hardly see the benefits of
what is currently going to the state and local governments. It is a fight
between factions of the elite for the money from oil. Only
recently, the Kano state government signed a contract with Julius Berger for
constructing the "governor's lodge" in Abuja at a cost of N719
million,[24]
though taps are not running in many parts of the state capital, and the state is
said to be behind in Universal Basic Education Scheme. So long as Muslim leaders
do not stop "redistributing" resources to themselves under different
guises, every shout of "Allahu Akbar" from them is one more exercise
in mystification. Someone has to tell them. Perhaps,
one way to look at the consequences of not adhering to the principles enshrined
in the Qur'an and Sunnah is to look at statistics from the United States of
America, the model economy in the age of globalization.[25]
As we fall over ourselves in "deregulation",
"liberalization", "privatization" and other cliché's which
we little understand it is good to remember that the richest 1%
of American households owns 40% of the
total national wealth. The top 20% of American households owns more than 80% of
the national wealth. During the 1980s, 75% of the income gains and 100% of
increased wealth went to the top 20% of American households. Inspite of its
tremendous wealth as at 1995 one out of every five children in the U.S. lived in
poverty. Half of the Americans living below poverty line are elderly, between
250,000 and 3 million Americans are homeless and families with children make up
as much as one third of the homeless. In
Nigeria, the figures are likely to be starker. The newspapers recently told us
that 70% of Nigerians live in absolute poverty i.e. on less than $1 dollar a
day. Muslim writers, like social scientists every where, differ on exactly what
the remedy is. Traditional scholarship rejects the extreme socialist view
associated with Abu Dharr and later with Muslim radicals like Shari'ati and Arab
Socialists in which the Prophet replaces Marx as the founder of socialism. The
argument of scholars like Mutahhari and Chapra which I agree with is that
equality of wealth was never envisioned in Islam, even though poverty
alleviation and provision of basic needs are necessary. These
needs are often defined as follows:[26]
i.
training and education to develop the innate abilities of the individual
and to enable him to cater for his well-being independently without becoming a
burden on others; ii.
a suitable job, profession, or trade in keeping with his aptitude,
ability, ambition, and needs of society so that he and society both benefit from
his ability and training; iii.
adequate food and clothing; iv.
comfortable housing; v.
a generally healthy environment combined with appropriate medical
facilities, and vi.
adequate transport facilities to enable a worker to commute to his place
of work without unreasonable discomfort and to convey his product to appropriate
markets at reasonable cost. The
reality on ground, particularly in Northern Nigeria, is that our governments are
far from providing these needs. Yet every Local Government receives anything
between N20m and N30m monthly from the Federation Account; every state
government receives almost N2 billion monthly from these accounts. What is the
way forward? For
those of us in this hall who are not politicians and are still lucky not to be
counted among "the masses" we must realize the tremendous burden on us
before Allah to liberate our people from their sorry state. We must first of all
renew our commitment to two principles: The unity of Nigeria and the survival of
true democracy. The
unity of Nigeria is in the best interests of its people in view of the
historical experience of war and suffering among all those nation that broke up[27].
The world is moving towards consolidation and synergy and we must resist the
centrifugal forces tearing this nation apart. Some here may say, "we are
northerners" or “we are Muslims". Some may hail those governors
preaching ethnic or religious authenticity. The truth is as follows: The people
responsible for the plight of the Muslim northerner are no other than the
northern Muslim elite. We must never let this elite forget that and we must
remind our people that their true enemy is not the Nigerian constitution which
guarantees their freedom and equality; not the poor Southerner or Christian but
their rich fellow Muslim who has dehumanized them and kept them in perpetual
deprivation. This we can only do through active participation in civil society -
the press, the universities, professional association and NGOs. Our task is to
unravel mystification and unveil pretenders even though it is proving difficult
to do this in an environment in which every northerner or Muslim is being
demonized. The
second element is education. Only education will restore to the northerner a
sense of his self worth and humanity and his equality with other human beings.
As Tocqueville clearly understood, “once human beings accept the legitimacy of
the principle of equality in one sphere they will attempt to extend it to every
sphere of life". Only education will eliminate the culture of begging and
subservience on which our people thrive. And it is precisely because the
dominant classes know this that they prevent the people from having a liberating
education. Redistribution of the resources of this nation and provision of basic
needs to the poor is not charity to be left to the piety of individual public
officers. It is a right and people must be taught to demand it. This
is why to me this is not a subject to be treated as "da'awah",
a lecture appealing to our leaders to be God fearing. It is a call to all of you
to join all of us in talking not to our leaders, but to our people; in telling
the people about our leaders. Civil society is about placing the "fear of
the people" in the hearts of leaders and forcing them, God-fearing or not,
to serve their constituency. It is these principles, equality, equitable
redistribution of resources, provision of basic needs that are at the heart of
progressive politics. This politics will not succeed if the people line up
behind one faction or the other of the dominant classes. But it will if
progressives bury the hatchet and once more pursue what Ernesto Lauclau and
Chantal Mouffe refer to as the "radical democratic imaginary". As a
theoretical postulate the “imaginary” is the response of what has come to be
labelled “post-modernism” to a dilemma. The free democratic polities of the
western world invariably had capitalist relations which entrenched inequities
while the socialist countries with a more equitable distribution of wealth and
income tended to be repressive political dictatorships. With the collapse of
communism the world is too willing to “throw the baby out with the
bath-water”; to jettison the welfare state along with political repression.
The latest tendency in left-wing political thought is therefore one that seeks
to combine the political freedoms of democracy with the egalitarian economics of
socialism. In this, it is very close to the social, political and economic
justice espoused by Sayyid Qutb in his magnum
opus. I
have often been criticized by Islamists for applying concepts of western
philosophy and political theory in the study of "Muslim society". I
reply that the society in question is a post - colonial entity fully within the
ambit of western domination; a part and parcel of the history of the imperialist
west. I should also add, by way of a disclaimer, that my agreement with an
aspect of a writer’s thought and methodology does not signify a whole-sale
acceptance of his theory. My use of taxonomy based on Foucault’s critique of
conventional historiography for instance does not mean I fully accept the
principles of his archaeology or genealogy of knowledge. Similarly agreement with Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe’s politics does not signify satisfaction with the somewhat
nebulous foundations of post-modernist epistemology. Fellow
"northerners” have also questioned the wisdom of my open criticism of the
northern elite. I reply that I criticize the "Nigerian elite" in
general but concede that I find the northern elite when compared to say the
elite in the South - West, even more deserving of criticism. The truth is that
silence in the face of injustice represents, in my thinking, complicity. Finally,
let me conclude with this quote from yet another Western Philosopher, Niccolo
Machiavelli, for the benefit of those who may have decided to join progressive
nationalist and democratic forces: "There
is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more difficult for success, nor more
dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has
enemies in all who profit by the old order." Thank you. [1]
Paper presented by S.L.Sanusi, Assistant General Manager, United bank for Africa
plc, Lagos at the second International seminar on Islamic Banking and Finance
organized by Ahmed Zakari & Co with the theme:
“Establishing a Truly Islamic Financial system in Nigeria-setting the
Agenda” on 30th June and 1st July, 2001 at the Abuja
Sheraton Hotel and Towers. The
author is grateful to the organizers for honouring him with an invitation as one
of the resource persons. 2
See my "Institutional Framework of
Zakat: Dimensions and Implications" which was delivered at a symposium
held at Katuru Road Mosque, Kaduna on Saturday 2nd December 2000
(see www.gamji.com/sanusi.htm) 3
In what follows I am indebted for most citations to Chapra, U. “The Islamic
Welfare State and its Role in the Economy” in Ahmad, K. and Ansari, Z.I.
(eds.), Islamic Perspectives: Studies in
honour of Maulana Sayyid abu’l A’la Mawdudi 4
The Holy Qur’an, Chapter 59: Verse 7 5
Ibid. Chapter 9: Verses 34-5 6
Al-Bukhari, al-Adab al-Mufrad, p.52 7
Abu Dawud, Sunan, Vol. 2, p. 481 8
Sahih Muslim Vol. 1, p. 126 9
See Chapra op.
Cit. P.208 11
Ibid. p. 209 12
abu Yusuf, Kitab al-Kharaj 13
Mamud Tukur has detailed these in his seminal work, Leadership
and Governance in Nigeria: The Relevance of Values. 14
For a good Introduction to Foucault’s Thought see: Gutting, G.(ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Foucault; Also Barker, P. ,
Michel Foucault: An Introduction 15
See Qutb, S., Social Justice in Islam 16
See his Tafsir ayat al-Ahkam 17
Nomani, F. and Rahnema, A. , Islamic
Economic Systems, chapter 2 18
Coulson, N. J., A History of Islamic Law,
p.27 19
See his Over-Stating the Arab State,
chapters 1 &2 20
This was a debate with D. S Yola in November-December editions of the Weekly
Trust. The article quoted here was titled “Islamic Movement : The real
Issues”. And subsequent quotes in this section are from the same article. I
have made the same arguments in other articles like “Islam, Christianity and
Nigerian Politics”, “Non-Muslims in a Contemporary Islamic State”, and
“Islamization of Politics and Politicization of Islam”. All of these are
posted on www.gamji.com/sanusi.htm 21
An interesting collection of essays by Shariati in Arabic has been published
under the title ‘An al-Tashayyu’ wa
al-Thaurah (“On being Shiite and Revolution”- which is revealing as to
his radical bent) 22
The most prominent of these was the Ayatollah Murtadha Mutahhari. See his Al-
Adl al- Ilahi 23
This point has been made by Sami Zubaida in his paper “ The Ideological
preconditions for Khomeini’s doctrine of government”, Published in Zubaida,
S. Islam, The People and the State. 24
For a more detailed exposition of this point see my "Religion, the Cabinet
and a Political Economy of the North", www.gamji.com/sanusi.htm 25
See story “Kano exco approves N719m for Governor’s Lodge”, front page of The
Triumph newspaper, Friday May 18, 2001. The announcement was made by the
State commissioner for Information without any sense of irony. 26
The figures below were taken from Smith, A. M. , Laclau
and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary, Chapter 1 27
Chapra, U. Op. Cit. Also see Qardhawi, Y., Fiqh az-Zakat Part 4.
i” symbiosis,
succeeded later by what we have today as "articulated" modes of
production, grafting capitalistic social relations onto a local feudal base.
This progression (or retrogression) has been thoroughly mapped out by Nazih
Ayubi.[18]