28 H. S. HOSSEINI
CHAPTER THREE
Contributions of
Medieval Muslim
Scholars to the
History of Economics
and their Impact:
A Refutation of the
Schumpeterian
Great Gap
1
Hamid S. Hosseini
No historical student of the culture of Western Europe can ever reconstruct for
himself the intellectual values of the later Middle Ages unless he possesses a vivid
awareness of Islam in the background.
Pierce Butler (1933), quoted by Mirakhor
3.1 THE GREAT GAP THESIS AS THE PROBLEM
In his seminal 1954 work History of Economic Analysis, Joseph Schumpeter pro-
poses a historical gap of some five hundred years in the history of economics
after its beginnings in ancient Greece. “Nothing was said, written, or practiced
CONTRIBUTIONS OF MEDIEVAL MUSLIM SCHOLARS 29
which had any relevance to economics” (Mirakhor, 1988 [1983], p. 301) within
this “historical gap,” which stretched from the demise of Greek civilization to the
writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). For, according to Schumpeter (1954,
p. 74), many centuries within that span are blanks. Emphasizing the contribu-
tions of Thomas Aquinas, which, to Schumpeter, were instrumental in ending that
five hundred years of “historical discontinuity,” the author of History of Economic
Analysis writes: “so far as our subject is concerned we may leap over 500 years to
the epoch of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) whose Summa Theologica is in the
history of thought what the South-Western spire of the Cathedral of Chartres is
in the history of architecture” (Schumpeter, p. 74).

ies within that span are blanks” (Schumpeter, p. 74). Furthermore, the Thomasian
revolution suggested by Schumpeter was a reaction to the Greco-Islamic influ-
ence in the Latin West and was impacted by it.
Notwithstanding Karl Polanyi’s substantive and formalistic distinctions in
economics, it is a fact that many non-Western civilizations made contributions to
the development of economics within those “blank” centuries (Hosseini, 1995,
p. 539). This is particularly true of medieval Muslim scholars – theologians,
jurists, Greek-inspired philosophers, and authors of the (Persian) mirrors for
30 H. S. HOSSEINI
princes. Those writers – who reflected Greek rationality, a sense of realism and
practicality characteristic of the Persian-originated mirrors, the worldly teachings
of Islam, and the “modernistic” economic institution present in medieval Islamic
society – produced theories closer to the economic concepts of the more recent
centuries than those of the Greeks or pre-modern Latin Christianity. That, of
course, occurred before economics had become an independent discipline.
Medieval Muslims also influenced Christian scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas
in their economic views, another point also neglected by Schumpeter and other
historians of economics. For scholasticism was a form of ecclesiasticism that
contained various elements, including Islamic thought (Mirakhor, 1988 [1983],
p. 304). Furthermore, medieval Islamic influence in economics may even have
extended to centuries beyond the age of Thomas Aquinas, as Hosseini has demon-
strated in his paper on the division of labor (Hosseini, 1998, pp. 653–81).
Interestingly enough, Latin Scholastics had initially found Islam and the
philosophic works of Muslims to be threats to Christian dogma (Ghazanfar,
1991, p. 130), evidenced by over two hundred condemnations, called Averroestic
heresies, published by the then Bishop of Paris. The numerous translations in the
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries into Latin of the works of Muslim and
Greek philosophers were so different from Christianity that, in the words of Will
Durant, “they threatened to sweep away the whole theology of Christiandom
unless Christianity could construct a counterphilosophy” (quoted by Ghazanfar,

the first Western historian of economics to acknowledge the contribution of a
“medieval” Muslim thinker and to view it as significant. For Spengler believed
that, among other things, Ibn Khaldun “had a deep insight into the essentials of
the accumulated knowledge of his time, could evaluate the manifestations of the
culture of his day, could reflect faithfully the understanding which contemporary
lawyers and jurists had of practical economic and financial matters that normally
were not treated in books” (Spengler, 1964, p. 269).
Spengler’s article, while important in acknowledging the neglected contributions
of various Muslim scholars, was not without its share of problems. According to
Mirakhhor, “Perhaps due to his zeal to show the influence of Greek writings on
Muslims, which he does on every page of the first section of his paper, Spengler
only considered some of the available evidence from the ninth century onwards”
(p. 309).
While we cannot deny the impact of Greek thought on Islamic civilization – for
the latter is a confluence of Arab, Greek, and Persian (i.e., Iranian) elements – we
should at the same time not overemphasize the share of individual components
in that synthesis. However, by exaggerating the Greek share in that totality,
Spengler diminishes the extent of the contributions of the pre-Ibn Khaldun Muslim
scholars that he surveys: “Such attention as was given to theoretical economics
seems to have been prompted less by an early and persisting interest in taxation
than by contact with Greek philosophical and scientific writings, especially those
of later Platonic and neo-Platonic orientation” (Spengler, 1964, p. 270).
Spengler, being aware that Ibn Khaldun’s knowledge of economic behavior
was superior to that of Bryson of Heraclea and other Greek thinkers, fails to
understand that Ibn Khaldun’s substantial knowledge of economic matters
reflected the realities of medieval Islamic society and the knowledge of many
Muslim scholars of the “Gap” centuries.
Furthermore, by concentrating on the contributions of Ibn Khaldun – who
lived after the Schumpeterian blank centuries – Spengler, in effect, did not pro-
vide sufficient ammunition to negate the Schumpeterian Great Gap thesis;

it causes selfishness. Although Aristotle defended private property, he rejected
exchange and had no Platonic appreciation of the division of labor (Hosseini,
1998, p. 66).
Medieval Muslim scholars viewed wealth and gainful activity more positively.
This was partly because Islam had mercantile roots. It is worth mentioning that
the Quran (believed by Muslims to be the direct words of God) and the Hadith
(reported words and acts of the Prophet) have a negative view of what the Quran
calls Riba (interest, or as some argue, only excessive usury). However, these two
highest sources of Islamic law regard wealth and profit, on both exchange and
productive activity, very positively (Hosseini, 1988, p. 58).
In the Quran and the Hadith, production and trade are viewed as noble prac-
tices (Essid, 1987, p. 78). (In contrast, the medieval Christian Church was insisting
that no Christian ought to be a merchant.) According to Sami Zubaida, “The
Meccan milieu of Mohammad and his followers was a business milieu. Before
the call to Islam, Mohammad and his companion engaged in trade extensively.
Mohammad was a relatively small merchant, but also worked as agent for other
merchants in trade with Syria. The early Muslims of Mecca and Medina con-
tinued in trade” (Zubaida, 1972, p. 321).
According to Maxime Rodinson, in medieval Islamic society, “the capitalist
sector was undoubtedly well-developed in a number of aspects, the most obvi-
ous being the commercial one” (Rodinson, 1978, p. 28). According to Nasser
Khusraw (1003–60) – a Persian poet, essayist, and traveler – in the year 1052 there
existed in the central Persian city of Isfahan some two hundred money changers,
although usury is forbidden in Islam (see Hosseini, 1995, p. 543). Many economic
CONTRIBUTIONS OF MEDIEVAL MUSLIM SCHOLARS 33
historians – such as Udovitch (1970), Labib (1969), Tuma, and S. G. Goitein –
have elaborated on these aspects of medieval Islamic society. These writers have
demonstrated attempts by early Muslim leaders at enforcing fiscal and monetary
policies, deficit financing, the use of taxation to encourage production, and the
existence of credit and credit instruments for the rudiments of checking and

which distorted normal conditions, these being competition and price determina-
tion through invisible forces such as God’s will and the interaction of supply and
demand. However, when intervention by the state was deemed necessary it
was usually kept at a minimum and exercised through the market” (Tuma, 1965,
pp. 10–18).
Mohammad, as the prophet and political leader of the Islamic community,
refused to combat price rises by direct action, stating that only God alone sets
prices (i.e., invisible hand? – see Tuma, 1965, p. 14). Mohammad is believed to
34 H. S. HOSSEINI
have declared that one who supplies the market with a commodity receives his
income as a blessing, but the monopolist who withholds his supplies receives his
income as a curse (Tuma, 1965, p. 15).
Among the pre-ninth-century Muslim scholars endowed with a deep under-
standing of economic issues and matters, the Iraqi jurist Abu Yusuf (731–98)
stands out. Having studied Islamic jurisprudence under Abu Hanifah (founder
of the Hanafi Sunni School of thought), Abu Yusuf, a judge for several Abbasid
Caliphs, was eventually chosen by Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid as his chief
jurist (Qadi al Qudat) in Baghdad, the capital. It was in his capacity as chief jurist
that Abu Yusuf composed The Book of Taxation (Kitab al-Kharaj), addressing
Caliph Harun al-Rashid. In this volume, the eighth-century jurist exhibits his
understanding of taxation, public finance, agricultural production, and other
related economic issues (Ghazanfaar, 1991, p. 125; also see M. N. Siddiqui, 1964;
S. A. Siddiqui, 1968). In Kitab al-Kharaj, Abu Yusuf shows his preference for a
proportional tax on agricultural produce, instead of a fixed rent on land. He
finds a proportional tax on agricultural produce more just and, at the same
time, as providing a greater incentive for bringing more land into cultivation,
thus creating more revenues for the government. Abu Yusuf strongly opposes tax
farming – a practice by which the tax collector could confiscate land in case of
delinquency (Ghazanfar, 1991, p. 5). Interestingly enough, this eighth-century
Muslim jurist suggested certain principles that anticipated those proposed 1,000

2
Philosophy entered Islam when, during the ninth century, the Abbasid Caliph
Maamoun ordered Syrian Christians at Baghdad to translate the works of the
Greeks into Arabic. These translations gave rise to a great deal of philosophic
activity and some of the greatest philosophers in history, who debated,
reproduced, added to, and wrote commentaries on the philosophic works of the
ancient Greeks. The first Greek-inspired Muslim philosopher was (Arab) Al-Kindi
(d. 870), who was soon joined by many others, mostly of Persian origin.
However, even before Al-Kindi, a rationalist Islamic “philosophic school” – the
Mutazeleh school – had emerged, peaking when scholar Abd al-Jabbar composed
a volume in dialectical form.
The Islamic mirrors for princes literature was “an important and characteristic
branch of Persian belles letters” (Lambton, 1980, p. 449). It entered Islamic thought
when the Iranian Ibn Muqaffa (724–57), a Zoroastrian convert, translated four
Persian (of pre-Islamic Sassanid-age) books of moral counsel into Arabic, and
wrote two more mirrors in Arabic himself. Soon Ibn Muqaffa was joined by
numerous other writers who – writing in Persian, Arabic, and other Islamic
languages – produced a branch of thought that was rich in an understanding of
economic activity (Hosseini, 2001).
The availability of Persian and Greek sources in Arabic, the language of intel-
lectual discourse among all scholars of medieval Islamic society, introduced these
scholars to the issues (economic or otherwise) debated by ancient Greek thinkers
or raised in the pre-Islamic Persian books of counsel. Such availability enriched
the economic discussions of Muslim scholars and elevated their discussions to a
higher plane.
From the ninth century onward, early writers were joined by many more scholars,
such as theologians and Muslim jurists, as well as philosophers and authors
of the mirrors. Of course, they were also occasionally joined by writers who did
not fit any of those categories, such as the Persian scientist and essayist Biruni
(b. 973), the twelfth-century Syrian merchant Dimishqhi, or the North African

of all kinds of property. If he has two valleys of gold, he wants to have a third”
(translation, from the Ihya, by Ghazanfar and Islahi, 1990, pp. 384–5). According
to Kai Kavus, “you must realize that the common run of men have an affection
for the rich, without regard to their personal concern, and that they dislike poor
men, even when their own interests are at stake. The reason is that poverty is
man’s worst evil and any quality which is to the credit of the wealthy is itself a
derogation of the poor” (Kai Kavus, p. 92). Like a post-Smithian proponent of
self-interest, Kai Kavus writes: “And never, in anything you do, lose sight of
your own interest – to do so is superfluous folly” (Kai Kavus, p. 109). Or, accord-
ing to the philosopher Ibn Miskaway, “The creditor desires the well-being of
the debtor in order to get his money back rather than because of his love for him.
The debtor, on the other hand, does not take great interest in the creditor” (Ibn
Miskaway, undated, p. 137).
3.5.2 The division of labor
Various medieval Muslims discussed the division of labor and its benefits in the
economic process. Among them are Kai Kavus, Ghazali, and the philosophers–
ethicists Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Miskaway, Nasir Tusi, and Davani. The
discussions provided by these authors of the division of labor were much more
CONTRIBUTIONS OF MEDIEVAL MUSLIM SCHOLARS 37
sophisticated than those of the Greeks, and included division of labor within the
household, within society (i.e., social), within the factory (manufacturing or tech-
nical), and among nations (Hosseini, 1998, section 4, p. 670). While it is believed
that it was Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) who, in 1829, applied the division of
labor to the household for the first time (see Hodgskin, 1966 [1829]), Hosseini
has argued that this was discussed by the Persian Muslims Avicenna and Nasir
Tusi several centuries earlier (Hosseini, 1998, p. 668). All of these writers have
discussed the social division of labor; and Farabi, Ghazali, and Kai Kavus have
applied it to the international arena. According to Farabi, each society is imper-
fect because they all lack all of the necessary resources. A perfect society can only
be achieved when domestic, regional, and international trade all take place (Farabi,

Ibn Khaldun, and various medieval Muslims before him, had understood the
problems of barter and the importance and functions of money in a more complex
economy. For example, Ghazali (1058–1111), in his Ihya, identified three problems
38 H. S. HOSSEINI
associated with barter – the lack of double coincidence of wants, the indivisibility
of goods due to the lack of a common denominator, and limited specialization
(Ghazanfar and Islahi, 1990, p. 391). Ghazali was able to trace the evolution of a
money-exchange system and the functions of money in modern terms; in particu-
lar, its being a means of exchange. Ghazali also discussed the use of gold and
silver as money and the harmful effects of counterfeiting and currency debase-
ment (Ghazanfar and Islahi, 1990, p. 392). Ghazali was able to develop an early
version of Gresham’s Law (Ghazanfar and Islahi, 1990, p. 394).
3.5.4 Demand, supply, and the market mechanism
Medieval Muslim scholars demonstrated an understanding of the forces of
supply and demand, and their role in price determination. For many of these
thinkers, there are only free markets and voluntary exchange. Providing advice
to his son, Kai Kavus states: “Further you must buy when the market is slack and
sell when the market is brisk” (in Hosseini, 1995, p. 553). According to Ibn
Taimiyah, “If desire for goods increases while its availability decreases, its price
rises. On the other hand, if availability of the good increases and the desire for it
decreases, the price comes down.” Ibn Taimiyah and other writers also understood
shifts in supply and demand (Hosseini, 1995, p. 553).
Ghazali also understood the same forces and causes. In the Ihya we read: “If
the farmer does not get a buyer for produce, then he sells at a very low price”
(Hosseini, 1995, p. 557). In the Ihya, Ghazali seems to have understood what we
now call price elasticity of demand, when he suggested that a cut in profit
margin by price reduction will cause an increase in sales and thus in profits
(ibid.). Ibn Miskaway even discusses equilibrium price, a price that Ghazali calls
the “prevailing” price (Hosseini, 1996b, p. 74).
Medieval Muslim thinkers discuss various other issues, including production

medieval Muslim scholars; it was also a reaction to the Greco-Islamic rationalism
that was initially introduced to medieval Latin Christianity by the likes of Ibn
Sina, Farabi, and Ibn Rushd. But how did that influence come about?
First, as we are reminded by historians such as Butler, Harkins, Leff, Ronan,
Hitti, and others, scholars in medieval Islam were “bearers of the torch of culture
and civilization throughout the world” (Hitti, 1943, p. 143). Secondly, for various
reasons, medieval Western Europe could not escape that influence. Muslim and
Christian lands were adjacent; Spain was under Islamic rule for well over seven
centuries, as were parts of southern Italy for about a century; the Crusades,
which lasted for a long time, introduced Christians to various Islamic concepts
and institutions; the works of major scholars of the Muslim world were trans-
lated into Latin; and there were various other types of contacts between the two
civilizations.
It was during the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries that Western Europe
became interested in science, mathematics, and philosophy – when these branches
of thought were at their height in the Muslim world. The Europeans had to learn
all they could from the Muslims before they themselves could make further
advances. The transmission of knowledge from Muslims to Western Europeans
took several forms:
1 During the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, various Christian scholars
traveled to Muslim lands to study Arabic and “Islamic sciences,” in order
to write and teach upon their return. One example is Leonardo Fibonacci (of
Pisa, d. after 1240), who traveled to study mathematics in Algeria and upon
his return wrote a book (Liber Abaci) in 1202 (Watt, 1972, p. 43). Interestingly,
Harro Bernardelli traces the beginning of economic analysis in Europe to
Leonardo’s Liber Abaci (Bernadelli, 1961, p. 320).
2 Many students from Italy, Spain, and southern France attended Muslim semin-
aries in order to study mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences.
In due course, many of these students “became candidates for professorships
in the first Western Universities to be established after the pattern of the

the case that more reasons existed for Muslims to influence Christian scholars in
economic matters than in philosophy, ethics, and the sciences. Two additional
avenues existed for this economic influence: trade and the cultural diffusion of
Muslim economic institutions and processes into medieval European societies
(Mirakhor, 1988 [1983], p. 327).
Concerning these influences, Spuler (1970) maintains that everywhere medi-
eval Islam entered, “it activated business life, fostered an increasing exchange of
goods, and played an important part in the development of credit” (in Mirakhor,
1988 [1983], p. 329). To Spuler, through Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic,
the merchants of the Islamic world became indispensable middlemen to the trade
of the West.
A consequence of that trade was the diffusion of economic institutions and
processes. The more advanced and flexible commercial techniques of the Muslim
East and Muslim Spain soon spread to Latin Europe. The commendam contracts
that became prevalent in medieval Latin Europe are believed to have Roman
origins. However, as demonstrated by Udovitch, the commendam and other
partnership contracts were Muslim inventions that moved through medieval
CONTRIBUTIONS OF MEDIEVAL MUSLIM SCHOLARS 41
Europe because of contacts between Muslims and Latin Europe, including the
writings of medieval Muslim scholars (in Richards, 1970, pp. 37–62). The same
was also true of other types of institutions – commercial and consumer credits as
well as such credit instruments as suftaja and hawala (bills of exchange and letters
of credit) – means of commerce developed by Muslims and borrowed by Euro-
peans (Mirakhor, 1988 [1983], p. 330). Udovitch and other economic historians
have also demonstrated the diffusion of other Muslim institutions to Latin Europe.
The foregoing lends support to our argument that Christian Scholastics were
influenced by medieval Muslims in their views of economic matters. Citations
of the works of these Muslim scholars cannot be found in the writings of the
Scholastics for several reasons:
1 As epitomized by the Crusades, Christians – Scholastics included – denigrated

such as Brifault, Crombie, Harris (1959), Sarton (1931), Sharif and others have
done the same, tracing the ideas of Grosseterste, Albertus Magnus, Roger
Bacon, and Wittelo to the writings of Muslim scholars.
42 H. S. HOSSEINI
3.7 CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Great Gap thesis, which has been implicit in the history of economic thought
since at least the nineteenth century, was made explicit by Joseph Schumpeter in
1954. But demonstrations of the historical continuity of economic thought have
led to rejection of the thesis. These demonstrations have included the contribu-
tions of medieval Muslim scholars to the history of economics during the five
centuries of the alleged Great Gap, the transmission of medieval Muslim know-
ledge to Western Europe during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries,
and the impact of this body of thought on Christian scholasticism and Thomas
Aquinas.
Historians of economics are intellectually curious, inclined in part to seek the
precursors of various theories. Until recently, this curiosity was not observed in
dealing with the contributions of medieval Muslim scholars. Historians of eco-
nomics, “usually so quick to find a deceased precursor for every theorist,” had
remained silent about medieval Islamic contributions (Essid, 1992, p. 39). How
do we explain this silence on the part of historians of economics?
It is likely true that believers in the Gap were generally not aware of the
evidence against the Gap thesis, which proves the historical continuity of eco-
nomic thought. However, the same perhaps cannot be said of Schumpeter, for
several reasons. First, Schumpeter was not totally unaware of the contributions
of medieval Muslims. Otherwise, he would not have mentioned Ibn Khaldun in
two footnotes in his 1954 seminal work (pp. 136 and 788) in reference to historical
sociology. Secondly, during his formative period Schumpeter spent some time
in Egypt (1907–8, working for an Italian law firm). Since Arab Egypt is an ex-
tremely important country in terms of both Arab and Islamic studies and culture,
it is hard to believe that Schumpeter who, according to Viner, was to account

Crombie, A C. 1963: Medieval and Early Modern Science, 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Dales, R. 1971: The influence of Grossetesste’s Hexaemeron on the Sentences, Comment-
aries of Richard Fishaire, O.P., and Richard Rufus of Crownwall, O.F.M. Viator, 21,
271–300.
Durant, W. 1950: The Age of Faith. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Essid, Y. 1987: Islamic economic thought. In S. T. Lowry (ed.), Pre-Classical Economic Thought.
Boston, MA: Kluwer, 77–113.
—— 1992: Greek economic thought in Islamic milieu: Bryson and Dimishqi. In S. T. Lowry
(ed.), Perspectives on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 7. Northampton, MA: Edward
Elgar, 39–45.
—— 1995: A Critique of the Origins of Islamic Economics. New York: E. J. Brill.
Farabi, Abu Nassr 1982: Madineh Fazeleh (Good City), Persian translation by Sajadi. Teheran,
Iran: Zuhuri.
Ghazali, Abu Hamed undated: Ihya-al-Ulum al-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences), 4 vols.
Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al Nadwaa.
—— 1927: Kitab Tahafut al, Falasafah (The Incoherence of Philosophers). Beirut, Lebanon.
Ghazanfar, S. M. 1991: Scholastic economics and Arab scholars: the Great Gap thesis
reconsidered. Diogenes: International Review of Human Sciences, no. 154, 117–40.
—— 1995: History of economic thought: the Schumpeterian Great Gap, the lost Arab–
Islamic legacy, and the literature gap. Journal of Islamic Studies, 6(2), 234–53.
—— 1998: Early medieval Arab–Islamic economic thought: Abu Yusuf’s (731–798 AD)
economics of public finance. University of Idaho Discussion Paper #98/5.
—— and Islahi, A. 1990: Economic thought of an Arab Scholastic: Abu Hamed Ghazali.
History of Political Economy, 22(2), 381– 403.
—— and Islahi, A. 1992: Explorations in medieval Arab–Islamic economic thought: some
aspects of Ibn Taimmiyah’s economics. In S. T. Lowry (ed.), Perspectives on the History of
Economic Thought, vol. 7. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 45–63.
Goitein, S. G. 1957: The rise and fall of Middle Eastern bourgeoisie in early Islamic times.
Journal of World History, 3 (Spring), 583–604.

Labib, S. 1969: Capitalism in medieval Islam. Journal of Economic History, 29, 77–98.
Lambton, A. K. S. 1980: Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government. London: Variorum
Reprints.
Leff, G. 1958: Medieval Thought. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books.
Lewis, T. 1978: Acquisition and anxiety: Aristotle’s case against the market. Canadian
Journal of Economics, 11(1), 69–90.
Lowry, S. T. 1979: Recent literature on ancient Greek economic thought. Journal of Economic
Literature, 27, 65–86.
McNulty, P. 1975: A note on the division of labor in Plato and Adam Smith. History of
Political Economy, 7(3), 372–8.
Mirakhor, A. 1988 [1983]: Muslim scholars and the history of economics: a need for recon-
sideration. Published in English in Papers on Islamic Banking, Tehran, Iran: Central Bank
of Iran, 299–354. Original paper presented in 1983 at the Annual Meetings of South-
western and Midwestern Economic Associations (US).
Richards, D. S. (ed.) 1970: Islam and Trade of Asia. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsyl-
vania Press.
Rodinson, M. 1978: Islam and Capitalism. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Sarton, G. 1931: Introduction to the History of Science, 3 vols. Baltimore, MD: Williams and
Wilkins.
Schumpeter, J. 1954: History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sharif, M. M. (ed.) 1966: A History of Muslim Philosophy, vol. 2. Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto
Harrassowitz.
Siddiqi, N. M. 1964: Economic thought of Abu-Yusuf. Fikl-O-Nazal (Aligorh, India), January.
Siddiqi, S. A. 1968: Public Finance in Islam. Lahore, Pakistan: S. M. Ashraf.
Smith, A. 1985 [1776]: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. New
York: Modern Library.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF MEDIEVAL MUSLIM SCHOLARS 45
Spengler, J. J. 1964: Economic thought of Islam: Ibn Khaldun. Comparative Studies in Society
and History, VI(3), 264–306.
—— 1971: Alberuni: eleventh century Iranian Malthusian? History of Political Economy, 3(1)