The Concept of Scarcity in Capitalist and Islamic Economics

Seyed Hossein MirMoezzi / Associate Professor of the Department of Economics, the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought                                                                                                                              h.mirmoezi@gmail.com

@Mojtaba Ghaffari / Ph.D. in Islamic Economics, the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought

                                                                                                                         ghafari.Mojtaba@chmail.ir

Hamed Abbasi / Ph.D. Student of Islamic Economics, the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought
Received: 2019/09/20 - Accepted: 2020/01/20                                                   hmd.abbasi@gmail.com

Abstract

Scarcity is one of the most important concepts in conventional economic. In conventional economics, two types of absolute and relative scarcity have been proposed. In Islamic economics, there is no common consensus on this concept. This disagreement is to the extent that some Muslim economists have defined Islamic economics on the basis of scarcity and some have generally rejected it. The purpose of this article is to present a clear idea of "scarcity" in Islamic economics. To this end, the paper, in an analytical approach, using a documentary approach, examines scarcity in conventional economics and then criticizes it, based on some empirical observations and religious teachings. The findings indicate that absolute scarcity is not accepted by Islam according to the Holy Quran. But in the case of relative scarcity it can be said that scarcity that leads to the optimal allocation of resources, with some points in mind, is endorsed by Islam.

Key words: Relative scarcity, Absolute scarcity, Islamic economics.

JEL: z12, B4, B59.