How Islamic Moral Political Economy Shapes Sustainable Development

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA: The Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) hosted a public lecture on the articulation of the Islamic moral political economy and sustainable development. The lecture, delivered by Prof. Mehmet Asutay, the winner of the IsDB Prize for Impactful Achievement in Islamic Economics, took place at the IsDB Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on 9 October 2024.

Prof. Asutay, the Director of the Durham Centre for Islamic Economics and Finance at Durham University Business School, was awarded the prize in recognition of his significant contributions to shaping Islamic finance to promote sustainable development and human welfare within the Islamic moral political economy paradigm.

During the lecture, Prof. Asutay focused on the barriers to accessing resources, and the emergence of new moralities, such as sustainability and ethical business and finance.

He emphasized that true sustainability can only be achieved by fundamentally altering conventional assumptions to ensure equal access to resources. He highlighted the Islamic moral political economy’s perspective on emancipation and empowerment through resource accessibility, guided by the concept of Ihsan, which refers to agile and optimal governance.

The prize laureate also identified the need for an authentic methodology for sustainability and explained why it is imperative to disrupt conventional assumptions through the Islamic cognitive system or Islamic moral political economy paradigm, leading to new imaginaries.

The Islamic Moral Political Economy movement emerged to develop an understanding of an embedded system of economy that fosters an extended stakeholder development strategy with an extended stakeholder governance model. The multifaceted nature of Islamic economic development can be addressed through ijtihad, which is the base of Islamic moral political economy, beyond the Islamization of the neo-classical economy.

Prof. Asutay underpinned the key essence ontology of Islamic moral political economy as being just, sustainable, and imperative. Based on this philosophical foundation, the Islamic moral economy within the Islamic worldview can be outlined as:

Being complementarity nature of all the stakeholders to reach unity (tawhid)

Being within the balance (Mizan)

Recognizing and provisioning of an opportunity space for the development path for each stakeholder to reach their perfection (rububiyah)

Harmonizing the growth of each stakeholder with other stakeholders (tazkiyah)

leading to inter-and-intra generational justice (adalah)

ensuring the equilibrium-based (ihsani) governance

Prof. Asutay concluded the lecture by noting that it is an opportune time for the emergence of healing and ihsani leadership and governance in civil society.

Prof. Asutay also granted a one-on-one interview at the IsDB Institute, where he ‎highlighted the significance of winning the IsDB Prize and how his contributions will help shape the landscape of Islamic economics and finance knowledge. The interview is available on YouTube here.

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