Purpose: Economic justice is one of the fundamental pillars of development and a core principle of Islamic economics. Despite its importance, few studies have developed a comprehensive measure capable of simultaneously capturing the multiple dimensions of economic justice from an Islamic perspective. Therefore, this study aims to develop and measure a composite Islamic Economic Justice Index for the provinces of Iran during the period 2006–2018.
Method: This applied research adopts a composite-index design approach. Based on the theoretical foundations of Islamic economics and previous studies, an Islamic Economic Justice Index was constructed using five dimensions: intragenerational justice, intergenerational justice, equitable distribution of production factors, technical efficiency, and allocative efficiency. After normalizing and harmonizing the indicators, a composite index ranging from 0 to 1 was calculated, where lower values indicate a higher level of economic justice.
Findings: The results show that approximately 70% of the province-year observations had index values below 0.5, indicating a relatively favorable level of Islamic economic justice in most provinces. The most equitable situation was observed in Kurdistan Province in 2008, with an index value of approximately 0.186, whereas the least equitable situation was recorded in East Azerbaijan Province in the same year, with a value of approximately 0.796. Furthermore, provincial trends did not exhibit a consistent upward or downward pattern; however, the national average index followed a downward trajectory, indicating an overall improvement in Islamic economic justice during the study period.
Conclusion: The proposed index provides a comprehensive framework for assessing economic justice from an Islamic perspective. The findings suggest a gradual improvement in the level of Islamic economic justice in Iran over the study period. The index can serve as a useful tool for policymakers to monitor regional disparities and design policies aimed at promoting economic justice across provinces.