Social Well-being Index-Instrument: Panacea for the failures of Islamic Economics and Finances

Abstract

This paper “Social Well-being Index-Instrument: Panacea for the failures of
Islamic Economics and Finances” has undertaken a worldly (Muamalat)
interpretation of verses (2:164-167) in view of Tawhid and the world-system. The verses point out the promised successes of truth and the defeat of Rationalism. Rationalism is shown to be defeated both by the overwhelming power of the divine law of unity of knowledge and by its own morally void self-contradictions.
We have constructively argued in the spirit of the Qur’an and Sunnah vis-à-vis
the project of Islamization of knowledge and the world-system that, the verses (2:164-167) instill a wider field of understanding and application out of the moral high ground. Every part of the Qur’an is firstly a framework of
consciousness (scientific phenomenology) for understanding unity of the divine law as the precept of Tawhid. Next, they point out profound applications of the Tawhidi worldview to worldly matters. These essences together enable humankind to construct the morally excellent socio-scientific order. In this spirit of the total phenomenology of the Tawhidi worldview, we proceeded on to derive a comprehensive logical formalism from the verses (2:164-167). This answers both the questions of Truth and Falsehood as Signs of Allah. This paper establishes the logical formalism of Tawhid and its world-system. In it the treatment of both Truth and Falsehood has yielded a generalized model that applies both to the sublime and mundane issues of life. One such issue, using a limited matrix treatment, was proposing a new financial instrument. Such an instrument has escaped the academics and practitioners in the field of Islamic economics and finance to date. The new financial instrument that we have presented here in the light of the general Tawhidi worldview methodology is shown to answer the comprehensive questions of the Maqasid as-Shari’ah for the benefit of the individual and the firm embedded in the Ummah.