A study of Muslim economic thinking in the 11th A.H. / 17th C.E. century

There are numerous works on the history of Islamic economic thought. But almost all researches come to an end in 9th AH/15th CE century. We hardly find a reference to the economic ideas of Muslim scholars who lived in the 16th or 17th century, in works dealing with the history of Islamic economic thought. The period after the 9th/15th century remained largely unexplored. The present study undertakes an investigation into the state of Muslim economic thinking in the eleventh century hijrah, corresponding to the seventeenth century CE. The period of study covered in this project is one of the most neglected parts of Muslim intellectual history. To set a proper perspective and to provide background knowledge of the situation in Muslim countries, at the outset the author has presented an overview of the history of Muslim governments at that time, their economic condition and intellectual and literary situation. Due to certain limitations, the main focus of the research has been works available in the Arabic language with a few exceptions, and economic institutions that existed in the Ottoman Empire that controlled the heartland of Islam. It also takes the note of some Western economic institutions and ideas in the seventeenth century for comparison purposes.