islamic economic renaissance 381While al-Zarqa accepts that it is only normal that companies would
be driven by profit motivation in these circumstances (ibid.), other
scholars reject that reasoning. Œassan is among those who, although
they accept mutual and cooperative forms of insurance, reject the
form of insurance that is motivated primarily by profit seeking (Œassan,
1980). He argues that such insurance contracts suffer ambiguity and
uncertainty as to the value of damage and the premium, as the latter
should be exclusively for covering risks, not for making profits, and
this may bring injustice to the insured. Œassan seems to be particularly
concerned about the insured being unjustly treated and being sub-
jected to potential exploitation by large insurance companies, more
than concerned about the necessity of insurance that is managed by
large companies in the contemporary financial environment. Al-Zarqa,
on the other hand, though he condemns exploitation of the insured,
urges insurance companies to practice fairness and to seek a moderately
acceptable profit level that would not entail injustice or a heavy
financial burden to the insured (op. cit.). The argument boils down
into that while Islamic economists and Sharì"ah scholars accept mutual
and cooperative forms of insurance, they are divided on profitable
insurance: some accept it with caution, and others admonish it with
rebuke. But both groups have one thing in mind: the interest of the
insured.
Economic Cooperation among Muslim Countries
The subject of economic cooperation among Muslim countries has
received much attention from Islamic economists. As might be
expected, there is a general call for cooperation and an emphasis
on the need for it to overcome endogenous as well as exogenous
problems. There is a variation of methods and differences of empha-
sis, however. Some two decades ago, Yusri suggested an integrated
Islamic cooperative system that aims at the elimination of economic
dependence on non-Islamic economic communities, which can be
based on the following principles (Yusri, 1985):
(1) Introduction of diversification in production and exports to help
Muslim countries rid themselves from the one-product economic
phenomenon that characterizes the economies of these countries
and their reliance on one or two raw material goods exports to
industrially advanced countries,