One scale, five systems.
The Islamic order is the answer.
Mizan weighs the systems that run the modern world against the standard the revealed sources set, and states the verdict.
The economic system comes first, in three books. Most of the money in a modern economy is created as a loan at interest, and in many states much of the tax collected leaves again as interest. Allah has forbidden riba, and any increase stipulated on a loan or a debt is riba. Mizan sets out the order that replaces it, costs it, and shows how it is reached.
“Allah has permitted trade and forbidden riba” Q 2:275
وَأَحَلَّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ ٱلرِّبَوٰا۟
The case rests on the Qur'an, the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, the consensus of the jurists and the practice of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, read through the books of the four schools of fiqh.
Or start where your work is: For scholars and muftis · For economists · For Islamic finance practitioners
What Mizan is for
For each system it does three things. It shows where the present system fails. It designs the Islamic replacement and counts its cost. And it maps the passage from one to the other: who acts, in what order, against whom, and at what price. The proof comes from the revealed sources. Modern economics and history are brought in where they agree, and answered where they object.
- The economic systemPublished: the critique, the blueprint and the transition.
Next, by the same method: the Islamic political system, the judicial system, the corporation and the stock market.
Each system is weighed by the same method and checked the same way. Nothing is listed as done before it is done.
The first system weighed
The economic system, published in full.
The work, in three books
- Book One, the critiqueThe Islamic Critique of the Modern Economic OrderWhy the modern economic order fails.Read the critique in full
- Book Two, the blueprintThe Architecture of a Just EconomyThe replacement, designed and costed.Read the blueprint in full
- Book Three, the transitionThe Passage to a Just EconomyThe road from the order that exists to the order that should replace it.Read the transition in full
Book One, the critique
The modern order has failed.
Its foundation is riba, which is forbidden absolutely. Its taxation and its inflation characteristically fail the law of lawful taking that the jurists set for any compulsory levy on private wealth, chiefly because they state no ceiling and their schedules are rewritten every year.
Weighed rule by rule, the standing levies on private wealth fail on the two questions that discriminate, what is the maximum and what happens when it is exceeded, while a cost-priced fee passes every rule.
✓ satisfies · ✗ fails · ◑ split by design or by jurisdiction
| Instrument | Is there a maximum? | Is an over-take returned? |
|---|---|---|
| Personal / corporate income tax | fails | split computation only |
| GST / VAT, in the Pakistani design | fails | fails for the final consumer |
| Withholding, final-tax design | fails | fails no excess recognised |
| Customs / cross-border tariff | satisfies bound rate, in domestic statute | satisfies reaches the rate |
| Genuine cost-pegged service fee | satisfies ceiling is the cost, policed by reclassification | satisfies reaches the amount |
| Outside the tax code | ||
| Base expansion worked as a hidden tax | no base, no rate | fails no forum and no restitution |
Book Two, the blueprint
The present order stands on one belief: that there is no alternative. There is.
A state that lives on the rent of land and natural resources, held in trust for everyone; on trade levies set by reciprocity; and on fees priced to the service it gives. Zakat goes to the eight categories Allah named (Q 9:60) and cannot fund the general operations of the state. An emergency levy is allowed only when the treasury is empty, and only while the need lasts. No standing tax is laid on wages. We costed the design, and we publish its shortfall first.
A lean state's legitimate requirement, built function by function, is about 10.6 percent of GDP; what a state of Pakistan's type collects today on the bases the design keeps covers 2.55 to 2.85, and the gap is closed by building the machinery for rents and customs, never by a tax on wages.
No income tax and no standing emergency levy in any column.
Book Three, the transition
The ceasing of riba may not be staged.
The building of the replacement may be staged by capacity. The ceasing of riba may not be staged at all: the interest is void at once, whoever holds the claim, and the principal actually advanced is still owed.
When the order comes, the interest on every inherited debt is void at once, whoever holds it, and the sum actually advanced is still owed and returned on a defensible schedule.
One inherited loan (Not to scale)
First class
Struck at once
Category 1, for every holder.Voided at once, struck and not phased.
- The stipulated increase
- Interest capitalised into the balance: riba wearing the principal's clothing, stripped back to the sum actually advanced
Second class
Owed, and returned on a schedule
Category 1 for the creditor who actually advanced the sum; for traded paper held by a secondary party, what is owed and to whom is Category 3.Unwound on a defensible schedule: the manner and timing are governed by consequence, the substance is not.
- The sum actually advanced
How Mizan knows what it claims
Each claim is marked where it is made: fixed by decisive text, established by the Rightly Guided Caliphs, or open to reasoned argument.
- Category 1, the fixed. Settled by decisive text. We invite correction of our reading, never debate of the text.
- Category 2, the time-tested. Established by the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and not in doubt. The one open question is whether it transfers.
- Category 3, the open field. Open to reasoned argument, permanently and by design.
- Settled in the four schools: the ground a claim rests on, not a fourth category.
A category says how settled a claim is. A dagger (†) says only that one page or number is still being checked, and a settled claim can carry one without being in doubt.
Where to start
- For the reader
Start with the case.
Start with the case for the whole work; then the first system weighed, the economic system, with its own four-minute case, its argument and the books themselves.
- For scholars and muftis
Check our reading.
What decisive text fixes, we state as fixed; we invite correction of our reading, never debate of the text. Where the four schools agree, we say so and do not reopen it. Where they differ, we give each school from its own books as valid ijtihad, the reasoned judgment of qualified jurists. We issue no fatwa; a ruling on a person's own case is for the muftis. Show us an error in our reading, our sourcing or our grading, with a reference, through the correction form at the foot of each book, and we will correct it and credit you by name.
- For economists
Test the numbers.
The first system weighed, the economic system, publishes its shortfall first and answers its three hardest questions on its own terms. Start there.
Read it, and hold us to it.
The books carry every citation and every stated limit, and every claim in them is marked by how settled it is.