Towards an authentic Islamic development model: Incorporating the roles of trust and leadership in the Islam – Iman – Ihsan paradigm

Abstract

Over half a century after Islamic economics, as constructed in the post-colonial search for a modern Muslim identity, claimed that a morality-based economic system, built on the axiomatic foundations of Islamic ontological thought, would achieve the social and political aims of Islam, Muslim lands are in a dire state of underdevelopment and chaos in which basic human rights are absent even though resources are not scarce. Therefore, it may be said, that this Islamic economic vision has failed to produce any desired effect. The question is, why?
This research explores the ontological sources of Quran and Sunnah, aims to identify the reasons for the failure and, through the reformulation of a new authentic model, aims to present an Islamic development methodology which is holistic in nature and which transcends the limitations of the economic or political spheres. The resulting model encompasses the concept of trust and leadership in Islam and identifies the role and functioning of each one separately.
This research, which is qualitative in nature and utilises the methods of discourse analysis and textual and contextual deconstruction, is structured around three major essays the first of which details the overall development model as the path of Islam-Iman-Ihsan (submission-faith-perfection), the second with the role of iman (faith) as the binding force in Islamic social order and the last details a new concept of Islamic leadership, drawn from the prophetic example, and outlines its specific functions to construct the environment in which Islamic development can be sustained