Islahi explores the economic ideas of nine Arab writers of diverse fields and from different regions: Ibn Abidin and al-Kawakibi from Syria, al-Shawkani from Yemen, al-Tunisi and al-Khamis from Tunisia, al-Tahtawi, Mubark, al-Nadim, and Abduh from Egypt.
The author highlights that economic issues had become the common concern of the nineteenth-century ?ulama' (religious sages), scholars, statesmen and literati. This was a new trend, not seen in previous centuries, which Islahi calls 'the awakening phase' in the history of Islam in which three types of stirring were observed: intellectual, economic and Islamic awakening – a phenomenon that caused the development of modern Islamic economics in the twentieth century.
This book makes an important and unique contribution to the history of Islamic economic thought.