Egypt, China, the Levant, and India once witnessed ages of renaissance, urban flourishing, and wealth, with standards of living admired and cited as examples — especially among the people of the Gulf at the time. Yet conditions changed. What, then, changed? Was it politics, or corruption? If the labor force and gross domestic product were not constant, then they were continuously increasing. Why were these civilizations unable to preserve the standard of living that others once looked up to? And if the world’s wealth increased through oil and gas, enriching other smaller states and improving the living conditions of their peoples, is that enough to reduce the wealth of those civilizations? Is it logical for the standard of living of a vegetable seller to decline merely because a new fish seller appears in the same market? There is no logic in that — neither in the past nor in the present. Yet this is what we witness daily under our financial system.

Religious jurists devoted great effort to researching and examining what may be called a “price” or medium of value, through criteria that were not fixed and over which they differed: being a medium of exchange, a standard for valuing goods, a store of wealth, and something limited among people. Should the same effort not be devoted to identifying the underlying rationale for each criterion? Or should it also include devoting equal effort to connecting the criterion of “store of wealth” with that of “limitedness among people”? Gold’s scarcity comes from nature; human beings do not control its quantity. Whenever beneficial goods and services increase among people while the quantity of gold among them remains fixed, the value of those goods and the wages of services decline in relation to gold. Wages and goods fall at the same time. Accordingly, a person who works for a wage whose value has declined against gold will still obtain goods whose value has declined at the same time. Despite the difference in the amount of gold between the effort exerted and the good purchased, the person’s effort and what he receives in return remain stable. The reason is the limitedness of gold as a medium of value, making gold a store of wealth whose value rises against effort and goods whenever beneficial goods and services increase among people. The entry of a fish seller into the same market in which a vegetable seller operates may reduce the value of vegetables against gold, but it will not reduce the vegetable seller’s standard of living, because both goods and wages decline against gold.

Today, however, our banknotes are tied to floating banknotes whose value is shaped by supply and demand. Whenever people increase their production of goods and services, more of those notes are issued in order to stabilize the value of those same goods and services against paper money. Thus, the entry of a fish seller into the vegetable seller’s market will not reduce the value of vegetables against those notes, because more paper has been printed. The notes previously stored by the vegetable seller lose value because of their increased abundance, or reduced scarcity, resulting from the printing of more paper. This leads to a “decline” in his standard of living because the value of what he had previously earned in paper money has fallen.

The civilizations of Egypt, China, the Levant, and India are the vegetable seller. Those who possessed oil and gas are the fish seller, whose growing wealth was built on reducing the wealth of others under a Western financial system — a system toward which Islamic jurists turned their attention through the broad concept of monetary value, using textual criteria whose underlying causes they may not have fully grasped.

How does fiat money, scarcity, and stored wealth affect the economy?

Its effect appears in how costs, incentives, and resources are managed, and in the economy's ability to turn decisions into sustainable value. The direct context is fiat money, arguing that expanding paper supply erodes stored wealth and helps explain shifting prosperity across civilizations.

Why is price and value connected to the factor of cost?

Confusing price with value traps judgment in the visible number, while value is tied to benefit and the ability to preserve purchasing power. This makes cost an important test that separates temporary treatment from capacity that can endure.

Why is the value of money connected to the factor of cost?

Money’s value comes from its ability to preserve benefit, enable exchange, and represent trust, not merely from its form or name. This makes cost an important test that separates temporary treatment from capacity that can endure.

Why is scarcity and trust in money connected to the factor of cost?

Scarcity protects trust when it is clear and credible, while undisciplined expansion needs strong institutions to prevent value from eroding. This makes cost an important test that separates temporary treatment from capacity that can endure.