Conceptual Modeling of the Rational Level of Consumption from an Islamic Perspective

The optimal level of consumption is one of the issues that have been discussed for a long time in different school of thoughts. "Monkish consumption", "maximum consumption to maximize pleasure and utility of people, organizations and societies", "the average level of consumption" and "the rational level of consumption" are some of the suggestions that have been proposed by different theorists regarding diverse incentives and goals of school of thoughts. Therefore, it is of high importance to evaluate the dimensions of the optimal model of consumption considering the Islamic view. Focusing on the Islamic sources, this paper tries to evaluate different kinds of consumption indices from the Islamic point of view and shed lights on the limits of rational consumption in Islam. Considering this, the question that we try to answer in this research is that: “what is the area of rational consumption level in Islam?”. The strategy of this research is qualitative and the methodology used is of thematic nature. In addition, different sources and books are reviewed in this regards.
Finally the extracted conceptual paper is presented in three areas which are: extremist consumption, rational consumption and non-extremist consumption. In each of these, their main components are introduced. The components of the extremist consumption include: Israf, Tabzir, Etraf, Izaee and Hers; The components of the rational consumption are: Justice, Fairness, Qavam, Qanaah and Shokr and finally the components of non-extremist consumption include: Iqtar, Bokhl, Imsak, Leamah, Osr and Haraj. To reach this end, the Islamic Shariah uses some rules including: no Osr and Haraj, no Dharar and no extreme behavior.