Does Islam REALLY have a Free Market heritage?

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The IPA’s (Institute of Public Affairs) Chris Berg and Andrew Kemp say they’ve found it!!

The Institute of Public Affairs has discovered Islam's free market heritage!!

Their cover story for the March 2007 issue of the IPA Review is called Islam’s Free Market Heritage and sets out their arguments, their evidence, their sources.

But when I checked on all these I got a very different picture!

I’ll present my own findings shortly.

On this show, I invite you to listen to what economics writer, Gerard Jackson from BrookesNews.com, has to say about the history of free market thinking and whether or not …

… Adam Smith was “simply picking up where Ibn Khaldun [a 14th century Muslim scholar] left off”.

… as the IPA Review reports.

Or whether the Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation, whom the IPA Review recommends, and who on their site quote George Bernard Shaw saying:

I believe that if a man like him [Muhammad] were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it much needed peace and happiness.

… are in fact busily “fostering … Islamic liberalism”.

Islam and the Free Market

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