Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of rent-seeking behaviour and rentier state in the context of ẓulm (injustice and exploitation), which is one of the key concerns in Islam in general and Islamic economics and finance in particular. Design/methodology/approach - As...

Whatever way "underdevelopment" is defined and whether one accepts or rejects any such definition, the following questions remain unresolved: why "underdevelopment" persists, particularly in the Muslim world? Is it a permanent feature of Muslim societies? Are poverty and deprivation, hunger and...

For all practical purpose, qard and qard hasan are generally regarded synonymous from orthodox Islamic viewpoint, because, due to the categorical prohibition of riba in the Qur'an, qard (loan) is considered ribawi, and therefore only gratuitous monetary loans – without any benefit to the...

In Islam Riba is categorically haram (prohibited). Riba is commonly equated with interest and thus interest is considered blanketly prohibited as well. Also, it is claimed that there is an Ijma (consensus) about the Riba-Interest equivalence. This paper surveys the claim of that consensus and...

Since the independence of Bangladesh nearly thirty years ago, the country is still going through serious instability, socio-political crisis and lack of a sense of direction. Time and again the country has shown sparks of success that are fundamentally constrained by various institutional...

Scholars and researchers in the field are almost unanimous that poverty reduction is one of the primary goals of zakat and targeted upliftment is pivotal for poverty alleviation. Generally it has been argued that faqir (destitute) and miskin (needy) are the primary target groups and their...

Contemporary Islamic economic thought has its roots in the Islamic revivalism of the twentieth century. Since the time of Prophet Muhammad, Muslims had a vibrant and dynamic civilization, where the economic life did go on both at the individual and collective level. While economics as a...

Modern economies have experienced unprecedented growth and prosperity, enabling a large majority of their societies to rise above poverty. The economics of wealth accumulation seems to have steadily unfolded offering better standards of living to the majority of those living in the developed...