the abbasìd’s golden age 201ated in relation to these funds on the other, the careful analyst is
advised to look into the question of hiring assets. The effect of hired
assets on the revenue generated by the business and the result of
that on the rate of return on capital-employed need to be particu-
larly examined in order to neutralize such favourable or adverse
effect from the overall performance of the business assets. Revenue
generated from hiring assets, or expenses incurred from hired assets,
are bound to distort the indicators of business results if the hiring
of assets is concealed. In this process revenues generated from hired
assets should be highlighted, otherwise the rate of return could be
exaggerated.
Hiring assets will have a similar distorting effect on the information
generated from the value-added statement. On the breakdown of the
value-added statement, which is the basic statement in calculating
gross national product, the statement is found to be consisting of
four well-known items: rent, wages, interest and profit. Specifically,
rent is shown on its own as the reward for, or the cost of, hired
means of production. And if the statement was to be broken down
further the figure of net profit could be shown exclusive of all the
rent incurred from hiring assets which are means of production.
When that is done, the statement fully matches al-Shaibànì’s direc-
tion in his classification. Turning our attention to labour, if labour
is regarded as human capital, wages in the statement would reflect
the cost of hired capital. This fits in with his intention even further.
Al-Shaibànì’s classification includes labour by implication, as he does
specify the exclusion of labour from hiring-out. In fact, his focus on
hiring-out in his classification helps shed more light on the contri-
bution of this sector to the value of production and the creation of
gross national product. The assertion of this by a writer in the mid
eighth century can only be viewed as extremely foreseeing. It looked
as if al-Shaibànìhad anticipated our needs for information and had
preempted our thinking.
Industry
On the outset, al-Shaibànìviewed all production activities as equally
important. Looking into industry, he ridiculed the ideas of his con-
temporaries who claimed that industry was a demeaning type of pro-
duction activity in comparison to trade. Examining the claim from
a religious perspective first, he named about a dozen Prophets and