When I say that this Ummah has the alternatives to the current prevailing global political and economic systems, I do not mean that the Islamists have the solution. Without any exception I know of, today’s Islamists decidedly do not have solutions. Furthermore, I don’t think most of them even understand the problems.
Political Islam and Islamic economics are exceedingly abstract concepts at present, and indeed, many of the Islamist parties and organizations are strictly reactionary, politically ambitious, and advocate the status quo. They just camouflage themselves in the flag of Islam. But this does not have to be the case.
The values and principles of this religion, the Shari’ah, and the cumulative experience of Islamic government over the past 1,400 years, represents a kind of ideological territory rich in intellectual minerals and resources, far more plentiful and valuable than any other ideological territory available; all we have to do is extract that wealth. By comparison, every other ideological territory looks like a landfill; they may contain some discarded but useful ideas and theories, but they also contain an abundance of rubbish.
The Islamic system established norms of free education, free healthcare, monetary stipends for citizens, equity in land distribution, city planning with a central concern for the welfare, convenience, and happiness of the residents, state support for research and development in all fields including literature, science, philosophy, sociology, and so on; and it upheld material rights as among the most fundamental human rights. The Qur’an and Sunnah, and our own history, provide both practical and spiritual alternatives to monopolistic, parasitic capitalism and the lifestyle of mindless consumerism. Islam is a land whose earth is absolutely pregnant with the social, economic, and political wealth needed to alleviate the poverty of ideas we are suffering today, if we will just start mining for it.