ABSTRACT
Our primary purpose in this paper is to explore the economic thought of a few Arab Scholastics whose writings extend over several medieval centuries. While the medieval era is generally defined as the period between about 500-1500AD, the centuries prior to the advent of Latin Scholasticism are usually classified as “early medieval”, covering up to about 12001300 (see Haney, 86; O’Brien, 13). This paper will focus on four (among several) Arab-Islamic Scholastics who wrote on economic matters during this post-Greek/pre-Renaissance period, before the emergence of Latin Scholastic economics, typically associated with St Thomas Aquinas (122574). This task is to be pursued through an examination of numerous primary and secondary sources, contemporary and historical, available in Arabic as well as other languages. The main stimulus for this effort comes from the well-known “Great Gap” thesis propounded by the late Joseph Schumpeter in his History of Economic Analysis of 1954. This thesis has scarcely been examined, and one finds it especially untenable in the light of voluminous writings by numerous Arab-Islamic Scholastics whose writings influenced the evolution of Western social thought.2 While a brief survey of the economic thought of selected Arab-Islamic Scholastics is our primary focus, it is appropriate first to briefly examine the “gap” thesis. Further, following the “survey”, some evidence as to the transmission and historical linkages of Arab-Islamic thought with the European-Latin Scholastics, documented in some detail elsewhere, will be briefly explained (see Ghazanfar 1991).
