The Economic Terminologies of Shah Waliullah – A critical Analysis

Abstract

The land of the subcontinent has birthed to very exalted and notable personalities, whose scholarly, spiritual, intellectual and innovative achievements have profoundly impacted the Islamic world in general and the subcontinent in particular. Shah Waliullah (RA) is among these commendable and versatile personalities. In this article, in addition to the economic terminologies used by Shah Waliulllah have been discussed and critically analyzed. These terminologies and their related thoughts have been extracted from his books on the theme of economy. Shah Waliullah (RA) was undoubtedly a genius of his time. His essence is a beacon of light for the pathfinders of cognition, while his personality is not less than a monastic lamp for the scholars. There is a consensus of all scholars on his academic, spiritual and renewed comprehensiveness. The main reason for this is that Shah Waliullah (RA) sought the foundations of consensus in the Muslim Ummah (nation) in that time when Hindu customs and social evils were rampant in the mixed religions and their practices in the subcontinent. In this scenario, Shah Waliullah (RA) undertook the task of reforming the Muslim Ummah. Although the circumstances were very unfavorable in his time as he witnessed the periods of eleven Mughal emperors in his lifetime. However, in spite of such unfavorable circumstances, Shah Waliullah (RA), in addition to other Shariah sciences, enlightened the society with the economic reforms which are a clear and radiant proof of his polarity and modernity. In this article, there is a brief summary of Shah Waliullah’s (RA) terminologies regarding economics.