the abbasìd’s golden age 221what God has ordained either by action or by thought or feeling.”
God-fearing in all aspects of life explicit and implicit, is the concept
of asceticism in al-Œàrith’s views and the views of his fellow flùfìs.
Beyond that, and without that, the Muslim is said not to be prac-
ticing wara". This is not necessarily what the non-flùfì view is, as
Muslims are accountable only to what they have actually said or
done. For what the Muslim has in mind but has not brought out
in the form of a behaviour, this is left to God to penalize for it or
otherwise; He may or may not forgive at His own discretion as the
Qur"ànic verses 2:285–286 are telling us. But for the flùfì, asceti-
cism, piousness, or wara", addresses the inner soul and thought of
the individual not merely his or her acted behaviour.
Giving up the doubtful, shubuhat, for the sake of what is certain
is a main feature of wara". There may be a need, for example, to
abandon a lawful means of earnings if it may lead to a forbidden
means of earning to others. The example of a Muslim burning out
his vineyard for fear of it being used by a buyer to trade in alco-
holic beverage is cited by al-Muœàsibìas an example of piousness.
This may sound like taking religion to extreme, as the person is only
responsible for what he/she has done, as the Qur"àn is telling us (2:
286), and it may be an extreme example of God-fearing, but it is
still, nevertheless, a case of a puritan avoiding the doubtful un-for-
bidden for the sake of the certain permissible. In very brief, as al-
Muœàsibì is telling us, in the market place earning a living, or
otherwise, one ought to be conscientious of God’s existence; observ-
ing His commands in action and in heart.
The importance of the treatise of al-Muœasibi is threefold: (a) it
shows the views of flùfìsm on an important economic issue, earn-
ings, (b) it criticises the claims made by flùfìs concerning economic
behaviour, mainly in the pursuit of earnings and consumption, and
(c) it is rich in ethics and the ethical treatment of economics. In that
sense, Earnings and Asceticism can be regarded as a great contri-
bution by the puritans to economic issues. Al-Muœàsibì is said to
have influenced great writers after him such as Imam al-Ghazàlì
whose great master piece, “Iœya’ Ulùm al-Dìn” is examined in the
following chapter.
Now we turn our attention to examining the development of
Islamic economic thinking during a difficult period in the history of
Islam that was marked by political fragmentation. This is the start
of the next chapter.