Ma`rifat Eqtesadi

There are several indicators for assessing economic justice in economic literature. The present paper seeks through an analytical method to elaborate on the concept of economic justice in Islamic thought and proposes an index to assess it. The research findings show that economic justice in its social sense means balance and attainment of sufficiency level of livelihood and negation of exclusive possession of wealth by the rich. Economic justice leads not only to eradicating absolute poverty but also to negating exclusive possession of wealth by the rich. This concept is based on the proposed model of circulation of income and wealth distribution in Islam. The three sides of this model that is family through friendship and mercy -all Muslims through the sense of brotherhood- and government through authority- prevent the appearance of a wide income gap in Islamic society. The existing indexes which lead to inequality are not created to assess this concept and cannot assess it. In order to overcome this shortcoming, the index of the ratio of families at the sufficiency level of livelihood to all families, the indexes of the ratio of working family providers with sufficient income to all family providers and the index of the ratio of expenditure to the expenditure capacity of the society are proposed as indexes of justice, which corresponds to balance.