Al-Ghazālī on the Proprieties of Earning and Living

Abstract

Al-Ghazālī’s important Kitāb Ādāb al-kasb wal-maʿāsh (The Book of the Proprieties of Earning and Living) constitutes Book Three of the Quarter on the Norms of Daily Life from his celebrated magnum opus Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (The Revivification of the Sciences of Religion). A reflective reading of this work provides valuable insights into the integrative socio-axiological vision underpinning all commercial transactions and economic activities in Islam, leading to a succinct re-definition of economics as “the science of earning and provisioning” (ʿilm al-iktisāb wa al-infāq), and thereby doing away with the current obsession with and anxiety over scarcity in chasing after wants.