SUSTAINABLE ISLAMIC DEVELOPMENT: RECOGNIZING THE PRIMACY OF TRUST, IMAN AND INSTITUTIONS

Modern socio-economic writings on trust have contributed much to itsunderstanding as an important element in studying human behavior in society.Recent literature on development studies has highlighted social capital as aterm, which incorporates ideas of value and benefit embedded in socialnetworking, while others have demonstrated trust to be very significant whenstudying the development of society and institutions. This paper will identifysome fundamental assumptions of modernity which prevent the betterunderstanding of trust as a human entity and consequently propose thatIslamic ontology, not confined by any such assumptions, provides a greaterunderstanding of the role of trust in society through the concept of ImAn.Analyzing qualitatively, through textual and contextual study of authenticIslamic ontological and epistemological foundations, the concept and thesocial functions of the essence of ImAn, with its relation to the humandevelopmental paradigm of Islam, a dual phase model of Islamic developmentmethodology is proposed. This model seeks to elaborate the multiple functionsof ImAn at the individual, societal and institutional levels and then comparethese with those of trust and social capital in modern thought. Hence thedynamic and interdependent nature of the Islamic development methodologywill be highlighted and the function of trust will be located within the IslAm-ImAn-IHsAn paradigm. This sequential approach indicates the primacy of ImAnas both the foundation and the continuing core of all Islamic developmentupon which frameworks and institutions are to be built. As such ImAn is shown to provide the bonding fabric, which subsequently organically spawnsIslamic institutions and which, in turn, bolster the level of iman in the society.Hence using this model, the reasons for failure of Islamic development can belocated at both the foundational level and the institutional level in terms offailures of ImAn.