The epistemological crisis of Islamic economics: The case of Islamic finance

Undoubtedly, Islamic economics is undergoing a serious epistemological crisis as its literature is full of complexities and paradoxes. This chaos is more evident in the applications of Islamic economics as is obvious in the so-called Islamic finance today. Most of the modern literature of Islamic economics focuses on this issue and portrays the divorce between Islamic economics as a theory and its application as embodied in Islamic finance. This disconnection between the theory and the application is, however, the worst thing a system may ever witness. Due to this reason, Islamic economists are attempting to rescue Islamic economics by revisiting its theory and practices, since it is obvious that the failure of Islamic economics will result in countless maladies. The paper attempts to diagnose the reasons of crisis in application and highlight what are supposed to have led to its occurrence.