The individual must realize that he is no more than the steward of this property, which is fundamentally the possession of society; this must make him accept the restrictions that the system lays upon his liberty, and the bounds that limit his rights of disposal. On the other side, society must realize its fundamental right to such property and must thus become bolder in prescribing the regulations and in laying down the laws which concern it. Thus only may we arrive at principles that will ensure complete social justice in the profitable use of property, which cannot be an end in itself nor a subject of actual ownership. The clearest instance of this is the matter of the tenure of land; thought cannot conceive that any man should be the owner of the land itself; all that he can possess is its irrigation and its crops, which means that the matter is one of the profitable use of a possession rather than one of actual ownership.
Sayyid Qutb spends much of this chapter in Social Justice in Islam insisting that it’s not full on socialism, but it’s definitely not free market capitalism.
In part, he has to write a lot about how not socialist he is because of the popularity of Islamic socialist movements. They were huge players in Egypt and Iran.
One can debate how those inspired by Qutb have kept to his ideas, but the society he describes is very much focused on ensuring everyone has enough to eat. (It’s also a society where I end up stoned to death in a public square, so you win some you lose some.)
Islam at least also forbids interest. There’s a complicated banking system, and I’m pretty sure there still are ways to fuck people over, but getting broke people trapped on the payday loan cycle at least isn’t one.
interesting. i had heard that Islam does apparently not have private land ownership (?) and a friend told me that 200 years ago, they didn’t even have actual borders between countries (and, i assume, villages or administrative districts?) thus it was all a continuous area with names and region designations being rather vague. i wonder whether that has to do with the idea that land cannot be possessed by some kind of monarch or king? do you know more about this?
A couple of other interesting discussions about different types of property rights in that article too. Critical to keep in mind that it’s a religion and that there are multiple traditions/legal schools of thought. (Shia versus Sunni is the biggest rift, but there are others.)
Fear of Islamic socialism was why the US kept the Shah in power.
As far land borders - that is seriously a huge and complicated and difficult topic. (Numismatic research - coins - often shows how often we don’t really have documentation of what was happening. Kingdoms that are only known to exist because they put out a few pieces…) That’s the kind of topic that people do post doc work on.
Sayyid Qutb spends much of this chapter in Social Justice in Islam insisting that it’s not full on socialism, but it’s definitely not free market capitalism.
In part, he has to write a lot about how not socialist he is because of the popularity of Islamic socialist movements. They were huge players in Egypt and Iran.
One can debate how those inspired by Qutb have kept to his ideas, but the society he describes is very much focused on ensuring everyone has enough to eat. (It’s also a society where I end up stoned to death in a public square, so you win some you lose some.)
Islam at least also forbids interest. There’s a complicated banking system, and I’m pretty sure there still are ways to fuck people over, but getting broke people trapped on the payday loan cycle at least isn’t one.
interesting. i had heard that Islam does apparently not have private land ownership (?) and a friend told me that 200 years ago, they didn’t even have actual borders between countries (and, i assume, villages or administrative districts?) thus it was all a continuous area with names and region designations being rather vague. i wonder whether that has to do with the idea that land cannot be possessed by some kind of monarch or king? do you know more about this?
A couple of other interesting discussions about different types of property rights in that article too. Critical to keep in mind that it’s a religion and that there are multiple traditions/legal schools of thought. (Shia versus Sunni is the biggest rift, but there are others.)
Fear of Islamic socialism was why the US kept the Shah in power.
As far land borders - that is seriously a huge and complicated and difficult topic. (Numismatic research - coins - often shows how often we don’t really have documentation of what was happening. Kingdoms that are only known to exist because they put out a few pieces…) That’s the kind of topic that people do post doc work on.