Economic Thought of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr

Economic Thought of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr studies the economic project of one of the most systematic Muslim thinkers of the twentieth century. Anchored on Iqtisaduna (Our Economics) and his Interest-Free Bank in Islam, and drawing on Falsafatuna and his wider corpus, the programme reconstructs al-Sadr’s distinction between economic doctrine and economic science, his layered theory of ownership, his account of distribution before and after production, social justice and social balance, riba and interest-free banking, the responsibilities of public authority, and the discretionary sphere (mantaqat al-faragh). Across fourteen modules the course runs at three levels: reconstructing his framework, applying it to banking, public finance, inequality and contemporary Islamic finance, and finally evaluating the doctrine, weighing its criticisms, and judging how far it can guide real policy today. It is a course in economic thought first, distinguishing throughout what al-Sadr said from what may legitimately be developed from his principles.

Al-Sadr, remembered by many as al-Shahid al-Sadr, gave his life for his convictions, and his economics begins not with contracts but with the human being: a person capable of self-interest yet answerable to justice and to God. This programme treats his thought as an amanah of the intellect, to be reconstructed faithfully before it is judged, and never reduced to a slogan or a label placed on institutions that have not changed. Its enduring question, what kind of economic order follows from an Islamic understanding of humanity, society and justice, keeps the study honest: it asks the learner to distinguish sincere reform from mere relabelling, and to hold that increasing wealth is not the same as establishing justice.