فصلنامه اقتصاد اسلامی
پیاپی 25 (بهار 1386)

Although passing the Law of Interest-Free Banking Operation and its implementation very soon after the victory of the Islamic Revolution and the elimination of Riba or usury from Iranian banking system was regarded a great success for the designers of the law and the then heads of banking system, it should not be regarded the end of job and reaching to a complete law free from any deficiency, rather it is in need – like any human law – to be revised and complemented successively. Now after more than 23 years from implementation of the law, it seems to be time to revise the Interest-Free Banking Operation and exerting some remedies, making use of the experience of Iranian banking system and other Riba-free banks. For this purpose we launched a vast study on the critiques put forth by a wide range of scholars and expertise from the time of implementation of the law. The main complaints and critiques can be categorized as follows:1. The absence of a clear and practical definition from banking system and defining the range of inclusion of the law.2. The influence of the economic situation of the first years after revolution upon the law, specially the affect of governmental approach to the banks.3. Incapability of the law for designing models which suits different kinds of bank and non-bank credit institutions.4. Incomprehensiveness and insufficiency of the law about the goals and tastes of depositors.5. Incomprehensiveness and insufficiency of the law about the goals and tastes of demanders of facilities.6. Incomprehensiveness and insufficiency of the instruments of monetary policy used in the law.7. The absence of suitable solution for facing with delayed claims.8. The absence of a mechanism for the relation between banks and credit institutions on the one hand and foreign and international bank on the other hand.9. The absence of a mechanism for religious and jurisprudential supervision upon the activity of banks and credit institutions.10. The absence of provisioned mechanism for research and development of interest-free banking.Making use of the experience of banking system Iran and other countries, we have made a critical review of the Law of Interest-Free Banking Operation, and then to remedy and complement it, an alternative law is suggested.

Although the phenomenon of poverty is an economic fact in many countries, at the same time it indicates the existence of irregularities and non-standard social and economic environments. Policy makers and economics utilize different approaches both to justify and battle against poverty. Islamic jurisprudence as well has notable remarks on the subject. Welfarism, capabilities and desert approaches are regarded as three dominant approaches in economic literature and welfare economics. After explaining determining remarks of poverty extent in Shariah, the above mentioned approaches are compared with sufficiency approach which is claimed to express religious stance. In addition to description, analysis and bibliographic references, the method of enquiry in this paper is based on the theories of welfare economics and jurisprudential rules. The description of fixed aspects of religious poverty extent and the rivalry potency of some of its elements with main conventional approaches to poverty constitute what this paper claims and triesto prove.

It is more than twenty three years that passes from passing and implementation of the Law of Interest-Free Banking Operation in Iran. Although it includes many advantages, the entire capacity of Islamic jurisprudence in contracts is not exploited. One of contracts which is neglected in compilation of this law is Bei‘ol Khiar and its likes. Bei‘ol Khiar and its likes are unanimously approved by Shiite jurists in addition to some Sunnite jurists and can have good applications in interest-free banking which is the focus of this article. Basic problems in this paper are as follows:1. What is the jurisprudential verdict of Bei‘ol Khiar and its likes?2. What application Bei‘ol Khiar could have in interest-free banking?Based on these two problems our assumptions are:1. Bei‘ol Khiar and its likes are valid jurisprudentially and are not Riba Trick.2. Banks can use this contract to give facilities to meet any economic activity and need.The proof of these two assumptions has been performed in two parts. The first part discusses the concept of Bei‘ol Khiar and its background in Shiite and Sunnite jurisprudence, the nature of and the arguments for Bei‘ol Khiar and its types. While mentioning the arguments for Bei‘ol Khiar, the questions of Sunni scholars about this contract is posed and answered. In the second part after a glimpse over different types of Bei‘ol Khiar and specifying the ones which could be utilized in allocation of bank resources, jurisprudential capacity of this contract for meeting the needs of demanders of bank facilities is investigated. Then regarding the advantages and disadvantages of this contract, the ideal model of its application in interest-free banking is suggested.

The examination of women's employment is regarded a problem of modern age. Decrease in the size of family, increase in the level of knowledge, promotion of medical standards, and the expansion of freedom debates could be mentioned among the factors which helped the issue to be created. While making a review of different approaches, this paper launches a religious approach to the problem; and examining the features of economic activity of women in the early Muslim society, especially focuses on the economic management of Khadijah (the wife of the holy Prophet) and Fatimah Zahra (a.s.). Jurisprudential injunctions about women's work are noted, then regarding the importance of learning and spiritual and social growth of women and the need for economic activity, the obligations of Islamic government in this respect are listed and regarding the necessity of high attention to the family as the basic social institution, the rules that should dominate economic activity of women from religious point of view are suggested.

Justice has been always served as a prominent problem in different fields of knowledge. The issue has been important in the literature of economic development as well, both negatively and positively approached; and the discussion that whether it is compatible or incompatible with the economic development has engaged a sizable portion of development literature in the last century. This concern has extended to the other generations so as a result, intergenerational justice has risen as a new topic in the arena of justice.In Quran, justice has been mentioned among the most basic concepts of religion and the important goal of the prophets. The holy prophet of Islam (pbuh) has constructed his government and religion based on justice and in the words of Imam Ali (a.s.) justice is introduced as a universal law, an unchangeable tradition in the world of existence and an inviolable necessity in human societies and legislative system; in the same way it is stressed that both the nature of the world and human law should conform with each other; as his eminence has been known as the Imam of justice. Imam Ali (a.s.) in a saying which is narrated from him mentions justice as the cause of consistency and redoubling of the blessings in the society. In the words of the other infallible Imams also justice is regarded as equivalent to the richness of the people.In this paper, among widespread dimensions of the justice, the stress has been put on economic justice in the methods of exploitation of resources, especially the ways of allocation among different generations. Therefore it is claimed first, Islamicly grown up individuals easily exercise the rules of justice among them. However, as a sanction for this purpose, exactly the realization of intergenerational justice in using natural resources, some solutions has been suggested by Shariah of Islam which are discussed in the paper. There is an important role for Islamic government in this mission.

Within the theological principles of Islam there are some concepts and beliefs that encourage Muslims towards just economic development; and therefore play a role in adjusting just and efficient internalized behaviors. Believe in the omni-ownership of God (the principle of Tawhid), guided equilibrium (the principle of prophet-hood and guardianship or Imamate), and the social dimension of divine justice (the principle of justice) creates a man and society responsible before God and committed to the hereafter which constitutes the basic element of Islamic economic development. This society is committed to realize just distribution and full employment as a divine duty; produce and consume permitted commodities, while practicing an efficient economic effort to increase their per capita income based on two principles of prohibition of harming others (La Zarar rule) and trustworthiness.

A number of economic models have been designed to evaluate and analyse the Islamic banking system. However, less attention has been paid to macro model-building in an Islamic framework even though most of the Keynesian, Classical, and Neo-classical economic systems are compatible with the tenets of Islamic economics, In this paper an interest-free economic system is formulated in terms of the familiar Neo-classical macroeconomics models. Even though the rules of conduct for Muslims in an Islamic economic system are different from those in the non-Islamic economic systems, it is shown that the Islamic economic system does exhibit properties that are consistent. Reasonable, and familiar. For example, under some reasonable simplifying assumptions, the model shows that savings and investment do not necessarily have to fall because of the institution of an Islamic economic system, as some economists suggest. These depend on the rate of return on mudarabah investment, just as they depend on the rate of return on investment (profits) in a credit-based economic system. These could be higher, lower, or remain the same relative to their levels in a credit-based economy under different conditions. The model also shows the impact of fiscal and monetary policies on the rate of inflation, the rate of return on mudarabah, and therefore on the investment demand. The model shows that, in general, an economic system based on Islamic principles is viable: it also provides unique solutions for income, employment, and prices