CHAPTER NINEISLAMIC ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE: ISLAMIC
ECONOMICS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURYIntroduction
From the second half of the twentieth century the substantial amount
of work on Islamic economics was beginning to have an impact on
economic thinking, especially amongst Muslims. Siddiqi cited some 700
titles of original and commentary works on Islamic economics; most
were written in the period from the early 1950’s to the late 1970’s
(Siddiqi, 1980). The titles cover a wide range of topics: economic
philosophy of Islam, (80 citations), economic system of Islam, (418
titles), Islamic critique of contemporary economics, (over 100 citations),
economic analysis in an Islamic framework, (about 50 citations), his-
tory of economic thought in Islam, (40 citations), and bibliographies.
Earlier surveys were also published such as; “A Guide to Researcher
in Islamic Economics” by Attiyah, (a pioneer in Islamic banking who
took Islamic banks to Europe), in 1974, and an, “Annotated Biblio-
graphy of Contemporary Economics Thought in Islam and a Glossary
of Economic Terms in Islam” by Khan in 1973, followed by “Islamic
Economics: Annotated Sources in English and Urdu,” vol. 1, 1983
and vol. 2 in 1991.
The volume of work is impressive, including Turkish literature on
Islamic economics that also came to prominence. In his “Contempor-
ary Turkish Literature on Islamic Economics”, Zaim cited over 200
pieces of work by Turkish authors on Islamic economics during the
same two decades or so from 1950’s to late 1970’s. The Turkish
authors seemed to have been determined to make their contribution
felt. The tremendous amount of work in the area has generated a
problem of riches for those wishing to write on the contemporary
development of Islamic economics. It has become rather difficult to
single out a name, or a group of names, as the author, or authors, of
the century, as we were able to do so in previous chapters. But a
problem of riches of writing in Islamic economics is much more pre-