The Multidimensional Zakat as an Unthought in the Discourse on Islamic Solidarity Economy

Abstract

This research begins with a conceptual problem: to what extent does labeling an economic institution as “Islamic” allow us to capture its specific logic when the analytical categories employed come from external theoretical frameworks? The literature on the Islamic solidarity economy tends to equate certain Islamic institutions with their modern equivalents, without always questioning the historical, ontological, and epistemological presuppositions of this transposition. This results in a tension between contemporary categories of solidarity and the normative and institutional structure specific to Islamic societies. The study adopts a qualitative, critical, and historical-conceptual approach, based on the analysis of categories, their presuppositions, and their institutional inscription. Zakat is chosen as a paradigmatic case study to examine this tension. The analysis shows that reducing zakat to a mechanism of solidarity tends to obscure three constitutive dimensions: its character as an obligatory religious duty, the recognition of specific rights for beneficiaries, and its inscription within a legal and institutional framework to ensure that rizq reach those entitled to it. The shift from the practice of zakat in Makkah to its institutional structuring in al-Madinah thus sheds light on its contribution to a structural conception of distributive justice. The article demonstrates that the challenge lies less in defining zakat than in transposing an analytical category that individualizes and moralizes a phenomenon that is also legal, institutional, and systemic. It therefore proposes re-examining Islamic economic institutions based on their own normative and institutional categories based on ahkam, qawa'id and maqasid al-Shari'ah.