July 06, 2018
R: Islamic Moral Economy and Finance
Durham University
Mehmet Asutay
Mehmet Asutay is a Professor of Middle Eastern & Islamic Political Economy and Finance at the Durham University Business School; is the Director of the Durham Centre in Islamic Economics and Finance; is the Director for MSc in Islamic Finance & MSc in Islamic Finance and Management programmes, and is the Director of the Durham Islamic Finance Summer School.
His research, publication, teaching and supervision of research is all on Islamic moral economy, Islamic banking and finance, Islamic political economy and the Middle Eastern political economies including Turkish and Kurdish political economies. His articles on his research interest have been published in various international academic journals and professional magazines. He has published and edited books on various aspects of Islamic moral economy and Islamic finance, the latest of which are: A Model for Islamic Development: An Approach in Islamic Moral Economy (2019, co-authored with Shafiullah Jan); Islamic Finance: Political Economy, Values and Innovation; Islamic Finance: Performance and Efficiency, and Islamic Finance: Risk, Stability and Growth (these three volume are co-edited with A. Turkistani) published in 2015; Islamic Banking and Financial Crisis: Reputation, Stability and Risks (co-edited with H. Ahmed and R. Wilson) published in 2014; Takaful Investment Portfolios: A Study of the Composition of Takaful Funds in the GCC and Malaysia (co-authored with A. Tolefat) published in 2013.
Mehmet is the Managing Editor of the Review of Islamic Economics; Associate Editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences; and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research, and Borsa Istanbul Review. He is also the Honorary Treasurer of BRISMES (British Society for Middle East Studies) and of the IAIE (International Association for Islamic Economics).
Alfaisal University
Necati Aydin
Dr Necati Aydin is an Associate Professor of Economics at Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He received his bachelor’s degree in public finance, master’s degree in international economics, and two doctoral degrees, one in education and the other in economics. He worked as a researcher at Florida State University and Florida TaxWatch Research Institute and also taught at Florida A&M University and Tallahassee Community College for several years. He had worked at King Saud University for 3.5 years before moving to Alfaisal University in August 2014.
Dr Aydin has conducted research in variety of topics including local and state government budget analysis, economic impact studies, tourism, higher education, virtual education, information technology, and Medicaid. He has published theoretical and empirical papers on these matters. He presents his works through conferences and seminars at top universities around the world including Harvard and Cambridge. In total, Dr Aydin has completed over forty research projects; authored seven, translated two, and co-authored three books; and published many peer-reviewed articles. Dr Aydin currently focuses on Islamic economics, welfare, subjective well-being, institutional economics, and neureconomics. He is currently directing two two-year research projects worth of nearly one million riyals funded by KACST. He also leads three million riyals project on corporate governance index. He has published in top academic journals including Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of Social Economics, International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management etc.
Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia
Zurina Shafii
Dr. Zurina Shafii is a lecturer in the Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, University Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) and a research fellow in Islamic Finance and Wealth Management Institute (IFWMI), a research Centre of Excellence in USIM. She holds an Accounting Degree from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and a Master’s degree and PhD in Islamic Finance from Durham University, UK. She holds professional accounting qualification, ACCA and a Certified Islamic Financial Planner.Her research interests are Shariah audit, Islamic financial institutions’ accounting and reporting, Islamic financial planning and Halal Compliance Procedures. She authored four books on Islamic financial planning, Shariah audit and Islamic finance. She won some recognition for her innovation on Shariah audit; bronze medal for Shariah Audit Kit in PECIPTA and a silver medal for Shariah Audit Step by Step Procedures in ITEX. In 2015, her team working on a game-based board game for Islamic finance education, Muamalat Interactive Game (MIG) won gold medal in 14th International Conference and Exposition on Inventions by Institutions of Higher Learning (PECIPTA 2015) and bronze medal in i-INOVA, an Islamic innovation competition.In 2014-2015, she was a visiting researcher in Durham University Business School (Durham University, UK), Islamic Research Training Institute (IRTI) of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and Global Islamic Finance Development Centre, a research centre for World Bank based in Istanbul. She is also the Chairman for Education Committee for a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Association for Islamic Financial and Wealth Management Malaysia (AIFiWM). She is an expert panel for Finance Accreditation Agency (FAA) as well as serving as an exco in International Council of Islamic Finance Educators (ICIFE) and Association of Shariah Advisor in Islamic Finance Malaysia (ASAS).
Islamic moral economy has emerged as a post-colonial movement to respond to the observed developmentalist failures including socio-economic failures and the failed political process. As a project, Islamic moral economy aims at human-centred development by essentialising social justice, equality, and participatory and sharing society by rescuing and re-defining the role of human as well as land, labour and capital among all other stakeholders within new modes of production and Islamic social formation. Thus, Islamic moral economy has theorised an alternative way of re-organising economy, society and politics in an interactive and integrative manner to form a participatory and sharing economy and society as termed ihsani or good society.
Within this alternative paradigm, Islamic finance has emerged as the initial operational aspect of Islamic moral economy, which has demonstrated an unprecedented growth in asset size and global expansion. However, despite this phenomenal growth in the transactional nature through prohibition of interest and limiting uncertainty and speculation, we are yet to see the transformational impact of Islamic finance on contributing to a new form of
modes of production based on Islamic principles of risk-sharing and profit-and-loss sharing as well as expanding its contribution on social justice, equality (prevention of inequality and poverty), equity-based finance, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) constituting participatory and sharing economy.
This network aims at bringing scholars and practitioners together to consider and discuss the role of Islamic moral economy and Islamic finance in achieving its stated ideals by highlighting the tension areas as well as the dynamism observed in the practice of Islamic finance.
The network welcomes conceptual, theoretical, and empirical papers to address the particularities and promises of Islamic moral economy and finance along with the emerging issues in the practice of Islamic finance and in developing theories and practices for the implementation of Islamic moral economy.