political fragmentation and cultural diversity 241accordance with God’s rules and commands through the guidance
of the Sharì"ah. Interestingly, al-A›fahànì’s definition of economic
development does not stop at the level of providing for physiologi-
cal needs, it goes beyond that to “facilitate life and make things
accessible”. It is to increase the utility of what is available to improve
the quality of life, physically and spiritually.
Al-A›fahànì’s views on the functions of man in the universe and
his emphasis on economic development as a starting point of these
functions, before worship, could be viewed as a reply to the flùfì
prevailing thinking at the time. The flùfìs, as indicated previously
(Chapter 5), focused on worship as the most important function of
man, superior to any other, including working to meet the basic
human needs. Al-A›fahànì, as al-Shaibànìbefore him, disagreed with
that; he opposed the idea of neglecting working in favour of worshiping,
or abandoning the pursuit of means of living for the sake of solely
God’s worship. It looked as if al-A›fahànì, in opposing the extreme
flùfì’s view, had taken the extreme opinion himself of putting striv-
ing for a living, emphasised in developing the earth, marginally prior
to worship. Conceivably, if a person died from starvation, there will
be nothing left of him/her to worship God with, he argues. Sustaining
life is therefore important to practice worship, a logical reasoning,
even if we assume that working for a living is a form of worship.
Further, al-A›fahànì’s views on production can be outlined as fol-
lows (Donia, 1984):
He emphasised the importance of labour to the production function
and in affecting the value of goods and services.
On a global perspective, he stressed the importance that the indi-
vidual should contribute to production by at least as much as the
equivalent of his needs for consumption. Any surplus that may be
consumed by the individual of production beyond the equivalent of
his contribution to production is regarded as an injustice to his fel-
low citizens.
He outlined the damaging effect of unemployment and highlighted
the relationship between unemployment and inflation, reduction of
economic activities, and the standard of living, indicating the effect
of unemployment not only on the unemployed but also as a gen-
eral socio-economic problem.
He criticised severely the flùfìs who advocated the superiority of
worship to work for production, providing evidence against their
views from the Sharì"ah.