The Nature and Function of the Philosophical Foundations of Islamic Economics

In economic literature, the terms foundations and philosophical foundations lead to conceptual and functional ambiguity. This paper seeks to resolve this ambiguity by expounding the nature and function of the foundations of contemporary and Islamic economics. Based on the research hypothesis, the philosophical foundations have production as well as orientation functions and that the foundations cannot serve as the only factor in producing Islamic economic theories. The findings of this paper which are analyzed analytically show that the lack of conceptual clarity of the term foundation can cause such problems like the gap between the theory and its foundations and ineffectiveness of philosophical foundations in some parts of the Islamic economic literature. The findings present the two views in Islamic economy literature; productive foundations and underlying principles. In this paper, I conceive the philosophical foundations in Islamic economics to have both production and orientation functions simultaneously. Based on this approach, among the triple philosophical foundations in Islamic economics, epistemological foundations have mainly orientation function and the ontological and axiological foundations have a production function. Accepting the production function of philosophical foundations, however, does not necessarily mean imposing extra burden on the foundations in the process of producing conventional and Islamic economic knowledge.