How Is Islamic Religiosity Connected with Socioeconomic Development?

Majority of the Muslim countries around the globe have been still experiencing a low level of development in various aspects of life compared to non-Muslim countries. Indonesia as the most populous Muslim country is not an exception. As far as Islam is concerned, this fact shows an irony for this religion strongly propels its adherents to pursue an excellent life ( hayatan thayybah ) both in worldly life and hereafter. Moreover in Islam, religion and development are very closely related each other where the level of development is dependent upon the implementation of religion in the society. The existence of Islam in a particular society should ideally lead such a society to be developed. This paper attempts to investigate the connection between Islam and development in South Kalimantan province, Indonesia. The province is selected for the study as it has long tradition of Islam, but it is reported to have a low level development. The objective of this study is to reveal the actual role of Islam on the society and to examine its connection to socioeconomic development using Maqasid al-Shari’ah framework. The survey method was employed for the data collection and Structural Equation Modeling used for the analysis. The findings showed that religiosity was positively related to various aspects of socioeconomic development as measured by the components of Maqasid al-Shari’ah .