Exploration in Medieval Arab-Islamic Economic Thought: Some Aspects of al-Asadi's Economics

This paper discusses economic ideas of al-Asadi, a fifteenth-century writer on socioeconomic problems. His work "al-Taysir" (The Facilitation) is a good example of the mirror for princes written in the later middle ages of the Arab-Islamic history. He suggested efficient market administration, public distribution of food, elimination of monopolies, monetary reform, management of public income and expenditure, use of statistics, though embryonic, in production and distribution, and measurement of inflation. The depth and significance of his ideas remains largely unexplored. The present paper attempts to address this need.