Muhammad Shawqi al-Fanjari
- Died
- 1431 AH
- Born in
- -
Muhammad Shawqi al-Fanjari (d. 1431 AH / 2010 CE) was an Egyptian jurist and professor of economics who served as a vice president of the Egyptian State Council (Majlis al-Dawlah). He specialized in Islamic economics and the legal analysis of contemporary financial and social systems.
Legal and Economic Thought
Al-Fanjari contributed extensively to debates on wealth distribution, contemporary zakat estimation, and Islamic financial alternatives. In his treatise al-Islam wa al-Tawazun al-Iqtisadi bayn al-Afrad wa al-Duwal (Islam and Economic Balance Between Individuals and States), published by Egypt's Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, he argued that the Islamic economic doctrine is uniquely grounded in the principle of private ownership paired with public utility, balancing individual and societal rights against both capitalism and socialism. He maintained that the true benchmark for judging a state in Islamic economics is the decent standard of living it secures for its weakest citizens rather than aggregate wealth or technological advancement.
Regarding monetary jurisprudence, al-Fanjari tackled the issue of determining the zakat threshold (nisab) for contemporary fiat currency. In a 1404 AH (1984 CE) interview, he linked the monetary nisab to the standard of sufficiency (hadd al-kifayah), reasoning that the prophetic thresholds for livestock, gold, and silver were equivalent living costs for an entire family for one year; applying the market price of livestock at that time, he estimated the contemporary threshold at twenty thousand Saudi riyals.
On the question of insurance, he deemed conventional commercial insurance impermissible and proposed cooperative mutual insurance (al-ta'min al-ta'awuni) as its legitimate substitute in his book al-Islam wa al-Ta'min (Islam and Insurance). He contended that to ensure its success in Arab societies, cooperative insurance should be made mandatory by the state for high-risk activities—such as vehicle and factory operation—as well as inevitable life events including illness, old age, and death.
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List of Works
al-Islam wa al-Tawazun al-Iqtisadi bayn al-Afrad wa al-Duwal (Islam and Economic Balance Between Individuals and States) is a treatise on Islamic economics examining the mechanisms of wealth distribution and economic equilibrium in Islamic law. Published by Egypt's Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, the work investigates the distribution of wealth and resources both locally between individuals and globally between developing and advanced nations.