Islamic economics has questioned endless growth for centuries. What can it teach us today?

As climate change and widening inequality intensify, economists are increasingly questioning whether endless economic growth is compatible with a healthy society and a finite planet.

The degrowth movement has put this question at the centre of public debate.

Advocates such as anthropologist Jason Hickel argue that we need to move away from the pursuit of ever-increasing production and consumption and towards meeting human needs within ecological limits.

But this line of economic thought has a much longer history than the contemporary degrowth movement.

Islamic economics , a largely overlooked tradition in the West, has long placed limits on consumption, condemned the concentration of wealth and treated economic activity as a matter of morality.

As a specialist in heterodox economics education, I think this tradition offers a useful way to reconsider some of the assumptions that underpin modern economics.

What is Islamic economics? There is no single definition of Islamic economics.

One scholar, Asad Zaman , notes there are about 30 definitions .

It’s sometimes described as as a form of capitalism without interest (known as riba ), combined with zakat , or wealth tax.

But that description misses much of what Islamic economics is concerned with.

The field has developed through several generations .

Early Islamic economists initially responded in part to European colonialism, seeking to articulate an economic system rooted in Islamic values.

A later generation worked within capitalism, giving rise to the field of Islamic finance .

More recent thinkers have returned to the broader questions of Islamic values and morality.