Property Rights (Ḥuquq) and Civilizations

By: Jamel Akbar

Four arguments will be explored:

1. The current capitalist economic and political models will never result in sustainable environments. The Western mode of property rights leads to rules and regulations, which results in intervention, bureaucracy, monopoly, and stratification, while the Islamic Shariaa achieves the opposite through rights or Ḥuquq.
2. Regardless of a people’s culture or religion, we may be able to save civilizations from pollution and climate change by learning from Ḥuquq. Specifically, we can learn from the rights of individuals and properties which grant end-users maximum control, thereby reducing monopoly, stratification, and unemployment.
3. Unemployment is often used as a means of increasing mass production, as unemployed people are often willing or even forced to work extra hours for basic needs. This leads to maximized production at the expense of the poor, while the rich become wealthier and extravagant in consumption. The Islamic legal system or Ḥuquq, however, provides access to resources for all and allows individuals to start businesses or factories without the need for permission from authorities, as long as they do not harm others or the environment. This creates a different model of production that is not based on capitalism, leading to reduced pollution.
4. Stratification and monopoly are the major causes of pollution. In other words, we are not short of technical ideas to reduce pollution, we are short of understanding the relationship between pollution and Islamic rights or Ḥuquq.

This is what Western thinkers such as David Harvey and Paul Mason are missing. Even worse, the development of the “internet of things” has led some, such as Jeremy Rifkin, to become blind to the importance of rights in favour of technology in their efforts to stop climate change. Thus, technology within capitalism is shaping property rights in a way that leads to a different type of monopoly that will continue to pollute the environment. Jeremy Rifkin, who will be criticized in this essay, is a good example of a researcher who is still operating within capitalism and therefore contributing to the continuation of pollution. He is in fact, as will be proved, introducing a new version of communism. This essay argues that it is impossible for Western paradigms of civilization to lead us to a prosperous and sustainable environment with justice for all, due to the inevitable monopolization which leads to poverty, stratification, pollution, and misery.

On the other hand, Ḥuquq has the potential to create prosperity for all people, regardless of their religion. This essay will criticize new economic models and those who criticize them as merely attempts that will end up by reproducing either capitalism or socialism.