Precolonial Islamic economics fused ethics with material practice, resisting the fact-value split.

Evidence

What the French saw as “cultural malaise” was in fact the cornerstone of an economic system that tied, in precolonial times, economics to a particular ethical formation of the self, a technology of inner introspection in which the agent operates on his own soul as a means of reaching a particular state of spiritual existence. This state would then dialectically reconnect back with material acts in the real world, producing ethical and moral effects in social realia, without particular regard to efficiency as the means to strictly material profit. “Cultural malaise” then was a French cultural translation of ethical thought and moral action, two “Oughts” that needed to be separated from the “Is” of economics. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 239 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Precolonial Islamic economics fused ethics and self-cultivation with material action — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 239; Islamic economic life ran on a pervasive religious ethic rather than enforceable rules alone — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 153; Islamic belief self-enforced contracts, cutting transaction costs across the Sahara (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Precolonial Islamic economics fused ethics and self-cultivation with material action #corroborates (0.98) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 239