From Tanmiyah to Takiyah: An islamic moral critique of development

Since its inception in the second half of the 20th century, development as a concept and practice has been widely challenged for being entrenched in capitalism and its western imperialist machine. Demands for reforming development or attempting to make it more sustainable and socially responsible have proven to be counter-productive, for development is steeped in the doctrine of linear unlimited growth which in essence is incongruent with the idea of sustainability and social justice. By tracing its history back to the origins of Western intellectual thought from the classical age to the aftermath of the second world war, this research argues first that development is a modern secular theory of social change. The failure of development to deliver its promises calls for alternative theories of social change that are independent in logic and different in dogma. In other words, providing a holistic and effective alternative to development necessitates flipping the value-base that gave birth to it in the first place, namely the Western worldview that came to base economics and social change on the principle of maximizing self-interest. This absence of morality as a central domain of the human condition constitutes the main problematic of this research. Stressing on the importance of a different genealogy of critique in social science, the second aim of this research is to demonstrate how the Islamic worldview can bridge this gap by presenting a moral critique of development through an analysis of the theoretical insights of the renowned philosopher Taha Abdurrahman and the practical experience of Hany el-Banna, the leading figure in global humanitarian work. The central argument that follows is that the unproductivity of the development theory can only be countered if the economy is pushed to the margins and is subordinated to the central domain of human endeavor: the cultivation of spiritual and moral capital through the process of Tazkiyah.