Dr. Muhammad Umar Chapra (February 1, 1933 – June 13, 2026) was a prominent economist, researcher, professor, and intellectual. During his student days, he was associated with Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba Karachi, and thereafter, throughout his life, he remained actively engaged in the field of knowledge and scholarship as a servant of Islam. As an author of numerous scholarly books and a creative thinker in Islamic economics, he left an indelible mark.
The book discusses the vast contributions of Dr. Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi in disciplines like economics, finance, Islamization, Maqasid-e-Shar’iah and contemporary socio-political and economic issues. As one of the chief contributors in Islamic economics, Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqi firmly believed that Islamization, or the acquisition of knowledge, should not be pursued for the sake of gaining power and authority. Instead, the creation, acquisition, and utilization of knowledge are fundamentally intended for the betterment of humanity. Its goal is not the universal domination of Muslims, but rather the overall welfare of humanity as a whole.
In his exhaustive deconstruction of capitalism, Chapra exposes what he terms the limits of capitalism and the logical flaws inherent in its foundational architecture. He explores the historical genesis of the market system, tracing its roots back to the Enlightenment worldview, which systematically unseated Christian scholastic moral constraints in favour of secularism, utilitarianism, and social Darwinism. The reason behind capitalism’s failure to actualize the socially-desired goals is the conflict between the goals of society and the worldview and strategy of capitalism. The goals were humanitarian, based on a moral foundation; the worldview and the strategy were social Darwinist.
Islamic Economics Project 