12 - Religious and Civilizational Political Economies of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Asianism

Summary

This chapter examines some Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian thinkers who argued that religious values and civilizational discourse needed to be front and center in discussions of political economy. The Pan-Islamic thinkers called for new kinds of economic solidarity among a transnational Islamic community that could promote its interests and values within the world economy. Their proposals included Iranian-born Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s calls for the collective economic modernization of the Islamic world, the endorsement of specific joint economic projects such as the Hejaz railway by Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II, and India’s Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi’s focus on the need for all Muslims to embrace a new kind of Islamic Economics. By contrast, the Pan-Asian thinker Sun Yat-sen focused on the interests and values of a transnational community that he conceptualized in civilizational terms. Sun argued that Asian countries’ interests and values could be promoted by development-oriented economic cooperation amongst themselves, their collective pursuit of neomercantilist goals, and an alternative tributary model of international economic governance centered on the principle of the “rule of Right.”