ABSTRACT
Our purpose in this paper is to explore and present some aspects of the economic thought of a medieval Arab-Islamic scholar, Taqi al-Din Ahmad bin ‘Abd al-Halim, known as Ibn Taimiyah (AH661-728/1263-1328AD). In the intellectual history of Islam, he “is classified as a reactionary”. Also, “there is very little in the theological development of Islam up to his own day that escaped Ibn Taimiyah’s highly developed historical sense” (Peters 1968, pp. 200-1). His discussion of economic issues tends to be quite normative, with extensive positive analysis, quite like that of other Arab and Latin Scholastics (for example, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, 1058-1111; Nasir al-Din Tusi, 1201-74; Ibn al-Ukhuwah, d. 1329; St Thomas Aquinas, 1225-74; and others). While some of Ibn Taimiyah’s works have been translated into English and other languages, the present paper relies primarily on the original Arabic-language sources.
