Reintegrating the Legal into the Social: Reviving Islamic Transactional Law in the Context of the Civil Economy, with Special Reference to Waqf

The potentialities and role of Islamic transactional law (ITL) and its underpinning axio-teleological concepts are explored in the cause of reclaiming the development process. In the Islamic scheme of values, the economic enterprise is premised on the organization of livelihood for sufficiency rather than perpetual growth so as to ensure overall socio-economic equilibrium. In this respect, there are discernibly close conceptual, structural and functional connections between the socio-economic objectives of ITL and those of the civil economy (CE). By making intelligent use of these substantive connections between ITL and CE, one can then devise effective legal strategies to substantively revive the former by taking strategic advantage of the already existing legal framework governing the latter. Thus, alient aspects of ITL are discussed in terms of invisible structures serving as formal, socio-legal means toward organizing socio-economic sufficiency, with special reference to the institution of waqf (charitable endowment) as a case in point.