Surah Quraysh

Abstract

The nature and scope of an Islamic economic system has been the subject of considerable discussion in recent years.' While there is something of a consensus on the point that Islamic economics is neither Capitalism nor Socialism, there is considerably more debate on the prevalence and extent of state intervention in an Islamic economy. Parhaps a closer look at Surah Quraysh may be helpful in this context. The surah is one of the earlist surahs to be revealed and it belongs to a period when Islam was laying forth its general ideological outlines to the idolators of Makkah. It extracts a message from commercial life of Quraysh and it adumbrates. a world view which can be helpful in guiding us to first principles.