The term class refers to a group of people who have a common and specific trade and profession in a society. The natural causes of class distinctions are special mental and physical attributes and training of individuals. People have various tendencies turns to a variety of professions and jobs on the basis of their attributes, talents, and training. They choose what matches their talents and inclinations; this is the natural and intrinsic basis for specialization and division of labour.

Taking into consideration the totality of the Islamic economic principles and injunctions and by comparing them with the newly formed economic schools of thought, it can be concluded that the former is neither comparable nor compatible with any of the so-called scientific and applied economic schools of thought. Islamic economics possesses its own special distinctions, which may be summarized as follows:

Next to the desire for ownership of land and other natural resources, the subject of money, its desirability and the manner of its circulation in the economy is generally another difficult economic issue. As needs grew and production increased, money was utilized to facilitate exchange, to function as the measure of value of different objects and to determine a common measure of values.

We have just seen that Islam expounds upon the general elements, goals, and results of public and private relations of individuals and the society. Also, Islam promulgates principles and injunctions based on these ends and elements. The injunctions and the derivatives from these vary depending on the spiritual, material, individual, and social relations and goals. In this chapter we will discuss the principles of ownership and economic relation derived from Islam.

Islam attests to the fact that the source of social and economic phenomena is human beings. Ideas, morality, instincts, and intrinsic (fitri) tendencies constitute the human character. The nature of the social, economic, and class relations reflects the combination of these aspects of the human self. The human character, in general has two aspects. The first includes constant features that are peculiar to man. If these features are taken away from him, he will become an entity that is different from that which he originally was intended to be.

Marx cast his theory in philosophical, historical, general and universal terms, and had found followers in every country who consider his as fixed and universal. Societies and governments have been established on the basis of his ideas. It is therefore important to devote as much attention as possible to his ideas and study them in this volume so that the concepts upon which Marx’s theories are built and other theories are derived from them are explained fully.

Amid such dispersion, confrontation, and apprehension the seed of a united force was beginning to form in the womb of industrial institutions. This unifying power was the very same labour power, which got transformed into an active force.

Power, possession, and needs, on the one hand, and the usefulness of things, on the other, have brought forth the relations of, and the desire for, ownership. This term ‘relations’ means that ownership constitutes the authority over the right to possess things which living creatures have obtained. The principle of ownership, intrinsically and as a natural fact, pre-exists ownership as an extrinsic and legal matter. Ownership as a source of legal rules and regulations is a later development from which has grown economic, social, and political ideologies.

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

In the Name of Allah, the All beneficent, the All merciful.

Praise be to Allah, Who hath not taken unto Himself a son, and Who hath no partner in the Sovereignty, no hath He any protecting friend through dependence (al-Isra’, 17:111).

The release of this volume at this particular time is no reason to assume that the author will totally agree with all the topics he wrote in this book many years ago.

Unauthorized publications warranted the release of this volume in its original and unrevised form. If opportunity permits, the revised edition will include the author’s present opinions and ideas. In the hope of that day!

Sayyid Mahmood Taleqani
Tehran, 1344 (1965)