Security, sovereignty, or sustainability of food in Islam? A Wasaṭiyyah economics model

Mohammad A.R. Alsaghir and Faizal A. Manjoo

Chapter 2 in Food Security and Islamic Ethics, 2025, pp 40-62 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Food security has been widely echoed in decision-making quarters as it is central to the sustainability of human life and national security. Of primary concern is the large carbon footprint attached to maintaining complex food supply chains involving increasing distances between food production and food consumption. Socio-ecological resilience theory dominates mainstream debate on food security. The modern approach to food security is based on benchmarking daily nutritional food requirements as the main representation of food security. Islam, as a heterodox paradigm, conceives food security with a comprehensive telescopic view that synthesises wider elements to include physical, spiritual, cultural, and social nutritional necessities. This chapter will first examine the mainstream discourse on food security. Second, the chapter will conceptualise the Islamic view on this topic by using the Homoislamicus rationale. The core question this study seeks to address is: what would the main elements of food governance in Islam constitute when compared to contemporary concepts of food security? Here, modern benchmarking of daily nutritional food requirements is problematised. Following this, a spiritual and socio-ecological sustainability model is offered. The Islamic principle of Wasaṭiyyah (moderation) for benchmarking food policy is proposed within this model.

Keywords: Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah; Homoislamicus; Food sustainability; Food security; Food sovereignty; Urban vulnerabilities; Sustainable development; Wasaṭiyyah (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035333578
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035333585.00008 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23369_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().