Social Safety Net in Islam: The Case of Persian Gulf Oil Exporters

The Persian Gulf oil-exporting countries have had a poor record of managing their oil wealth to meet the basic needs of their citizenry and have failed in insuring an equitable distribution of income and opportunities. Government expenditures in the social sector can be characterized as wasteful and subsidies as regressive and for the more-heavily populated countries simply unsustainable. Set within the paradigm of Islamic economics, providing both normative and ethical guidance on the development of a just economic order, the issue of reforms to the social safety net is analyzed and how these oil exporters can better address the needs of the disadvantaged in an Islamic context is suggested.