The Prophetic Ethics and Wage Justice in the Gig Economy: A Thematic Hadith Analysis
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Abstract
The digital platform-based gig economy has transformed employment relations through flexibility, autonomy, efficiency, and expanded access to economic opportunities. Despite these benefits, it also raises concerns regarding contractual ambiguity, income insecurity, unequal bargaining power, algorithmic control, and the distribution of risks that may disadvantage workers. Existing studies on the gig economy have largely focused on labor, economic, regulatory, and technological dimensions, while the reconstruction of work ethics based on Prophetic traditions and contextualized through maqāṣid al-sharī’ah remains relatively limited. This study aims to analyze the principles of work ethics in Prophetic traditions and their relevance to justice in employment relations within the gig economy. Using a qualitative method and a thematic hadith approach (mauḍū’ī), the study identifies, classifies, and interprets Prophetic traditions concerning work ethics, itqān, contracts, wages, workers’ rights, gharar, and ẓulm, and subsequently contextualizes them within platform-based work through the perspective of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah. The analysis demonstrates that Prophetic work ethics emphasize work quality, contractual clarity, fair remuneration, timely payment, fulfillment of workers’ rights, and protection from injustice as interconnected principles. The maqāṣid al-sharī’ah perspective further broadens the analysis by emphasizing the protection of wealth, life, welfare, justice, and human dignity. The gig economy is not inherently incompatible with Islamic ethics; rather, its central ethical challenge concerns how technology, flexibility, power, benefits, and risks are distributed within employment relations. Accordingly, integrating Prophetic traditions with maqāṣid al-sharī’ah provides an ethical framework for promoting a transparent, just, protective, and human-centered governance of the gig economy.
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