ABSTRACT

The Islamic labor market rests on the principles of the free market exchange of Islamic economics. Regrettably, the latter has failed to keep pace with the rapidly growing academic and professional developments of the former. Much of the published work within Islamic economics is idealistic if not radically ideological with little relevance to the Islamic labor market, leaving students of Islamic economics without a coherent body of economic theory to understand the practical objectives of Shariah that gives a sense of direction to the developments in this field. Drawing upon received sources of goals of Shariah, the authors present an independent academic work which:

  • Emphasizes the common conceptual grounds of labor market behavior shared by the objectives of Shariah approach as well as the conventional approach to economics.
  • Adopts standard tools of contemporary economics to explain the industrial relations.
  • Extends the conventional scope of the labor market and forces of the labor market under the umbrella of Shariah.
  • Enables readers and practitioners of Islamic economics to make economic sense of Shariah compliance and human resource development.
  • Explains how the economics of Shariah is liable to offer moral guidance and a sense of direction to regulators and practitioners of the Islamic labor market.

Labor in an Islamic Setting will be of interest to postgraduate students, academics, middle and senior management in both the western and the Islamic business communities, researchers and policy makers.

chapter 1|5 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|21 pages

The labor market in an Islamic setting

Review and prospects

chapter 3|19 pages

The division of labor and its theoretical foundations

Comparing Ibn Khaldun and Adam Smith

chapter 4|9 pages

A critical examination of the concept of "human capital"

The perspective of Islamic economic jurisprudence

chapter 6|16 pages

The test of Islamic sensibility with poverty

The state and women workers in the last period of the Ottoman Empire

chapter 8|15 pages

Inequality, the labor market, and economic growth in the MENA region

Is governance the missing ingredient to alleviate the situation?