Islamic Law of Business Organization: Partnerships

The recent decades have witnessed a strong assertion of Islamic identity. One of its manifestations is the insistence on the part of Muslims that all institutions of life---be they political, economic or whatever---should be brought in conformity with Islamic principles. This necessitates exploring Islamic principles relevant to the institutions concerned as well as developing clear ideas as to how those principles would be applied in the changed circumstances of the present age. Imran Ahsan Nyazee has addressed himself to these very questions in the present work and has attempted to spell out the Islamic principles on which business enterprise should be based specially in the area of partnership. In this exercise Nyazee displays a strikingly acute awareness of Islamic laws on the subject. This, however, is matched by an equally striking awareness of the forms of business organization in vogue in the contemporary world. What is perhaps no less striking is the author's robust confidence in Islamic law and its distinct approach to the problems of life, including business and finance. Nyazee feels no need to apologize for the fact that Islamic legal prescriptions come into conflict with some of the business institutions and practices of the present times. In fact he feels unhappy with those Muslims who, instead of taking up the challenge to build institutions of business and finance in the light of Islamic principles, resort to the less strenuous task of uncritically appropriating Western institutions. Such persons tend to gloss over the fact that some of those institutions might be incongruous with Islamic principles, or explain away by adopting an easygoing attitude to Islamic law. Nyazee is convinced that the Islamic legal principles which are at variance with the contemporary laws and practices in business and finance are intrinsically sound and are preferable to their counterparts prevailing in the present times. The work primarily represents a serious scholarly effort to sort complicated questions such as those mentioned above, to enunciate Islamic principles relative to business enterprise, and to apply these principles in the changed context of present-day business.---Zafar Ishaq Ansari (October 1997)}