A great contradiction of claims to go “back to the Qur’an and Sunnah” is that by strict qur’anic terms, the word Sunnah in the sense that we know it today (as referring only to the deeds and sayings of the Prophet (SAW)) is nowhere to be found in the Qur’an. That identification only came later, having been “contaminated” by the minds of mortals like Ibn Idris al-Shafii (RA) who championed such usage, even if the Qur’an means more than that.
When we say that the market should be restrained by ethical norms we don’t by default mean that the state should carry that responsibility. Critics typically take as axiomatic that the market is the root of all evil that any instance of irregularity, deficiency or oppressive practices that occur in commercial contexts is taken to warrant immediate outside intervention; and by that is often meant the state. Such an assumption about the market seriously underestimates the possibility of the market itself in restraining its own excesses. The misplaced emphasis on developing measures external to the market to rectify the latter’s shortcomings has only the result of treating the symptom rather than the real disease.
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