Islam and Capitalism: American Comparative Literature Study Toward Achdiat Karta Mihardja's Atheis Novel

摘要

This article aimed to find out the relation between Islam and capitalism, and Islam with science and technology based on American comparative literature studies on Achdiat Karta Mihardja's Atheist novel. The study was a qualitative that relied on verbal data in the form of ideas, opinions, and perceptions on Islam and capitalism obtained through a critical overview on the novel. The writer finds out that Although capitalism was criticized by many parties, both from secular circles and some Islamic circles, for Mihardja the ideal Islam was the one which was folded with capitalism as economic rationality, one of the dimensions of modernity. At the least, capitalism in the sense of multiplying profits as a goal is through three ideas: instrumental ratios, scientific ratios, and legal ratios. For him, the ideal Islam is rational Islam, including rationality in economic activities, not Islam that only concerns with spiritual life and life after death alone, as in the Islamic belief of the Tarekat, a Sufistic organization in Islam. However, capitalism which he carries out in the novel does not seem to be capitalism which allows economic injustice to occur, but capitalism with its elements of socialism (economic justice) in the macro and micro level.