التحول إلى الاستثمار المؤثر من منظور مقاصد الشريعة

Abstract

Collaborative capitalism is an inclusive term of several contemporary transformations in capitalism.  Capitalism is experiencing shifts away from maximizing profit as the only goal for corporation or the primary objective in investment decisions.  The main stages in this transformation are; corporate social responsibility, shared value, sustainability and impact investing as the capstone.  Moreover, there is an active pursuit of a more corporate alignment with social values in CEO and corporate activism even on the account of profit maximization for shareholders. The transition from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism is the major shift from shareholder primacy to balancing all the interests of stakeholders including; clients, employees, suppliers, society & environment.  Stakeholder capitalism avoids maximizing profit at the expense of the interests of other stakeholders. Impact investing as the capstone pursues impact maximization in the form of social return over financial return.  In impact investing, financial return is the constrain to sustain benefit maximization for all stakeholders. This transition to impact investing enacts fairness in the distribution of returns among stakeholders.  Furthermore, it advocates balancing the distribution of risk among stakeholders.

Islamic Shariah has accepted profit maximization as a permissible objective on the level of legal verdicts with respect to permissible and forbidden acts.  The form over substance approached yielded a short-sighted understanding of conventional practices in the Islamic financial industry.  Same practices that maximize shareholder interest at the expense of other stakeholders.  Re-examining profit maximization with a Maqasid lens allows the re-evaluation of jurisprudence understanding of mainly two legal maxims in Shariah; al-Kharaaju bi-l-Dhamaan and al-Ghurmu bi-l-Ghunmi.  This re-evaluation takes into consideration the impact of these legal maxims on all stakeholders.  Then, it endorses a more inclusive and benefit maximization understanding of justice and fairness in decision-making considerations, outcomes evaluation, and distribution of risk and returns among stakeholders. 

This paper seeks to deliver a framework and implementation model for Islamic financial institutions that is derived from Maqasid al-Shariah.  For this purpose, it addresses concepts, strategies and operational principles that are at the current transitions in capitalism and frontier developments in impact investing.