This document discusses the origins and flaws of Western social science, including economics. It makes three key points: 1) Western social sciences developed from a rejection of religion during the Age of Enlightenment and an over-application of the methodology of physics, treating human behavior as fixed rather than changeable. 2) This led Western economics to make normative claims about morality, society, and knowledge that directly contradict Islamic teachings, such as viewing selfish behavior as optimal. 3) As a result, Western economics fails to properly address questions of human welfare, justice, and the role of values and ethics in economic decisions. The document argues for an "Islamization of knowledge" to integrate Islamic worldviews into

1. I SLAMI C
ECONOMICS
WEEK # 3:
ORIGINS OF WESTERN
SOCIAL SCIENCE
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 1

2. ISLAMIZATION OF
KNOWLEDGE PROJECT
• Issue of Extreme importance for the Ummah
• Education shapes world view/ characters
• Integrated Education not available anywhere in the
Islamic World.
• Violent conflict between Western and Islamic
Worldviews
• Only one or the other is available in education,
Integration is essential but Impossible.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 2

3. WEST CLAIMS SCIENCES ARE
POSITIVE
• Economics is a Positive science, purely facts, no
opinion or value judgment.
• Physical and Social sciences equally factual
• This is not true, look at outcome
• Physical Science: Cars, computers, bombs, rockets
• Social science: Failure on all social fronts
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 3

4. ROOTS: REJECTION OF
RELIGION
• Claim: Age of Enlightenment, replaced superstition by
reason.
• Facts: Corruption of Popes let to split in Church.
Warfare and Intolerance let to secular society and
thought.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 4

5. SECULAR ANSWER
TO FIVE QUESTIONS
• How did the Universe originate? (will end)
• How did man come in to existence? (death)
• Basis for Morality and Behavior? (Individuals)
• Rules for organizing society? (Social)
• Nature of Knowledge? Distinguish
Valid/False
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 5

6. Q 75:36 DOES MAN THINK THAT HE WILL BE LEFT AIMLESS?
That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end
they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears,
his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental
collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought
and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all
the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the
noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the
vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's
achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a
universe in ruins -- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are
yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope
to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm
foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth
be safely built.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 6

7. ORIGINS OF MAN
• Evolution: Survival of the Fittest
• Theory of Competition and Free Markets
• Idea the elimination of the weak is “Good”
• In direct opposition to Islamic teachings urging
feeding of the poor, and help to the weak and
oppressed.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 7

8. RULES FOR INDIVIDUAL
CONDUCT
• Morality is Social Convention
• Greatest Good of Greatest Number
• An action is moral if it leads to happiness
• Private acts between consenting adults are OK.
• Utility maximization comes directly from this
mindset.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 8

9. RULES FOR SOCIETY
• The Social Contract is basis for society
• Lock’s Theory puts property above life.
• No anchor: Homosexuality Bad  Good
• Nation/States create morality, hence above it
• Rule of Law is superior to demand for justice
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 9

10. NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE
• Logical positivism replaces religion
• Observations (facts) + Logic leads to knowledge. All
else is superstition.
• Directly opposed to Islamic teachings:
ِ‫ب‬ْ‫ي‬
َ
‫غ‬
ْ
‫ال‬ِ‫ب‬
َ‫ن‬‫و‬ُ‫ن‬ِ‫م‬
ْ
‫ؤ‬ُ‫ي‬ َ‫ين‬ ِ‫ذ‬
َّ
‫ال‬
• Also, Quran says we have been given only a little
knowledge means we can not rely on our logic to get
to answers.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 10

11. CONSEQUENCE FOR
ECONOMICS
1. Morality is not positive: No “Just” Prices
2. Human welfare is not positive, observable.
3. Attempt to formulate economics a Universal
Mathematical Laws, rather than historical and
Qualitative Subject.
4. Most economic questions are normative and involve
value judgments. These are hidden inside
neoclassical framework.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 11

12. METHODOLOGICAL ERRORS
• Human behavior fixed: Utility exogenous
• Are humans selfish or generous?
• Wrong Questions: denies agency
• Economics: Satisfy needs + wants
• Islamic: Change behavior
Selfish Generous
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 12

13. GALILEO AND RISE OF
PHYSICS
• Mathematical and Quantitative: Not applicable to human
behavior
• Simple law explains diverse phenomena
• Conscious copying of physics methodology in economics
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT | GPGC JHELUM 13