THE TAWḤĪDĪ PARADIGM AND THE “MORAL MARKET” FROM NURSI’S PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The paper argues that crises of capitalism are rooted in its secular
paradigm. Therefore, it is not possible to overcome social, economic,
moral, environmental crises of modern societies through some
modification of free market capitalism. We need an alternative model
based on a new paradigm. The paper presents “moral market” as an
alternative economic model to free market capitalism. This is taken
from the writings of Said Nursi. It argues that the moral market
differs from free market capitalism because while the former relies
on the Tawḥīdī paradigm, the latter on secular paradigm with
corresponding ontology, epistemology, anthropology, and teleology.
The paper provides extensive discussion of the Tawḥīdī paradigm
from Nursi’s perspective. It also attempts to redefine maqāsid-i sharīa
and maqāsid-i iqtisād based on the Tawḥīdī paradigm. It concludes
with a comparison of the moral market and free market capitalism in
terms of their guiding principles, which are derived from their
corresponding paradigm.