A Comparative Study of Entrepreneurial and Non- entrepreneurial Businesses in the Islamic Economy: a Religious and Economic Analysis

Entrepreneurship has been known as a method of identifying new opportunities, allocating resources in the situation of uncertainty and creating an organization to manage resources. This paper describes religious learning approaches in which entrepreneurship is beneficial to society and individuals through its economic advantages. The benefits are gained through innovation, productivity and new business opportunities promoted by the Islamic society. Hence, the Islamic economy widely recognizes and encourages the entrepreneurial businesses with a positive-sum game while non-entrepreneurial businesses with a zero-sum or negative-sum game are simultaneously rejected. Gambling, Gharar and Rehan are examples of such non-entrepreneurial and zero-sum businesses a indeed. Based on the findings of this study, the Islamic economy strongly encourages people towards economic activities that are entrepreneurial businesses and comprise positive-sum game. However, it discourages non-entrepreneurial activities which include uncertainty with zero-sum consequences and even uncertainty with a positive-sum game is somehow accepted.