Rethinking Islamic Finance

Rethinking Islamic Finance
Author: Ayesha Bhatti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2018-12-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317064089

Islamic finance’s phenomenal growth owes to the Shariah compliant nature of its financial instruments. Shariah forbids the charging of interest (Riba) and instead promulgates risk-sharing and trade-based modes of financing. The Islamic financial industry has been subject to both critique and admiration. Critics argue that Islamic instruments (bearing debt-based structures) differ from their conventional counterparts only in legal lexicon and not in economic impact. The admirers argue that such instruments, irrespective of wider economic implications, rigorously comply with ‘juristically sound’ Islamic principles. This book aims to reconcile the above dispute. It argues that the financial impact of instruments is a consequence of the way they are priced and structured. The similarity in pricing and structures is an outcome not of the underlying Islamic financial modes but of the competitive environment in which Islamic instruments compete. Even risk-sharing and trade-based Islamic structures, if implemented in such an environment, would have a financial impact similar to that of conventional instruments. This book has a wider appeal for both academic and non-academic audiences. It can complement undergraduate and graduate courses as an additional reading on the intricacies of Islamic financial instruments and markets. For PhD students, it would help identify future research areas. To non-academics, it offers a deeper understanding regarding the working of the Islamic finance industry.

Rethinking Halal

Rethinking Halal
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2021-03-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004459235

Rethinking Halal reflects an anthropological revolution, that of the scientising, standardising, and normalising of social life through certification which is part of a process of ‘positivisation’ that directly affected Islam and Islamic normativity.

Rethinking Sovereign Debt

Rethinking Sovereign Debt
Author: Odette Lienau
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2014-02-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674726405

Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its obligations damages its reputation. Yet should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or else expect consequences--became dominant. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning capital markets, and demonstrates its reliance on absolutist ideas that have come under fire over the last century. Lienau traces debt continuity from World War I to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private markets in shaping our existing framework. Challenging previous accounts, she argues that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. Rethinking Sovereign Debt calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.

Rethinking Political Islam

Rethinking Political Islam
Author: Shadi Hamid
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2017
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190649208

Rethinking Political Islam offers a fine-grained and definitive overview of the changing world of political Islam in the post-Arab Uprising era.

Beyond Debt

Beyond Debt
Author: Daromir Rudnyckyj
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022655208X

Recent economic crises have made the centrality of debt, and the instability it creates, increasingly apparent. This realization has led to cries for change—yet there is little popular awareness of possible alternatives. Beyond Debt describes efforts to create a transnational economy free of debt. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Malaysia, Daromir Rudnyckyj illustrates how the state, led by the central bank, seeks to make the country’s capital Kuala Lumpur “the New York of the Muslim world”—the central node of global financial activity conducted in accordance with Islam. Rudnyckyj shows how Islamic financial experts have undertaken ambitious experiments to create more stable economies and stronger social solidarities by facilitating risk- and profit-sharing, enhanced entrepreneurial skills, and more collaborative economic action. Building on scholarship that reveals the impact of financial devices on human activity, he illustrates how Islamic finance is deployed to fashion subjects who are at once more pious Muslims and more ambitious entrepreneurs. In so doing, Rudnyckyj shows how experts seek to create a new “geoeconomics”—a global Islamic alternative to the conventional financial network centered on New York, London, and Tokyo. A groundbreaking analysis of a timely subject, Beyond Debt tells the captivating story of efforts to re-center international finance in an emergent Islamic global city and, ultimately, to challenge the very foundations of conventional finance.

Islamic Finance

Islamic Finance
Author: David Eisenberg
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 470
Release: 2012-03-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191630896

This work is a practical and commercial guide to the fundamental principles of Islamic finance and their application to Islamic finance transactions. Islamic finance is a rapidly expanding, global industry and this book is designed to provide a practical treatment of the subject. It includes discussion and analysis of the negotiation and structure involved in Islamic finance transactions, with relevant case studies, structure diagrams and precedent material supporting the commentary throughout. An introductory section describes the theoretical background and explains the principles (and their sources) of Islamic law which underpin Islamic finance practices, providing an important backdrop to the work as a whole. The work also considers the role of Shariah supervisory boards, Islamic financial institutions and the relevance of accounting approaches. The work adopts an international perspective to reflect the pan-global nature of the industry and accepted practices, with the aim to bring together different schools of thought applied in international Islamic finance transactions. It also highlights any regional differences in accepted practice by reviewing the position in the Gulf states, Asia, the UK and Europe and the USA. The second part of the book concentrates on Islamic financial law in practice and begins with a section on financial techniques. This section explains the basic requirements for Islamic finance contracts both in terms of the underlying asset types and also both the applicability and acceptability of the underlying asset. There is a full discussion of the various types of contractual models such as Mudaraba (trustee finance), Musharaka (partnership or joint venture), Murabaha (sale of goods), and Sukuk (participation securities: coupons etc). The nascent area of Takaful (insurance) is also covered as are matters specific to the important field of project and asset finance.

Rethinking Investment Incentives

Rethinking Investment Incentives
Author: Ana Teresa Tavares-Lehmann
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2016-07-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0231541643

Governments often use direct subsidies or tax credits to encourage investment and promote economic growth and other development objectives. Properly designed and implemented, these incentives can advance a wide range of policy objectives (increasing employment, promoting sustainability, and reducing inequality). Yet since design and implementation are complicated, incentives have been associated with rent-seeking and wasteful public spending. This collection illustrates the different types and uses of these initiatives worldwide and examines the institutional steps that extend their value. By combining economic analysis with development impacts, regulatory issues, and policy options, these essays show not only how to increase the mobility of capital so that cities, states, nations, and regions can better attract, direct, and retain investments but also how to craft policy and compromise to ensure incentives endure.

The Money Problem

The Money Problem
Author: Morgan Ricks
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022633046X

An “intriguing plan” addressing shadow banking, regulation, and the continuing quest for financial stability (Financial Times). Years have passed since the world experienced one of the worst financial crises in history, and while countless experts have analyzed it, many central questions remain unanswered. Should money creation be considered a “public” or “private” activity—or both? What do we mean by, and want from, financial stability? What role should regulation play? How would we design our monetary institutions if we could start from scratch? In The Money Problem, Morgan Ricks addresses these questions and more, offering a practical yet elegant blueprint for a modernized system of money and banking—one that, crucially, can be accomplished through incremental changes to the United States’ current system. He brings a critical, missing dimension to the ongoing debates over financial stability policy, arguing that the issue is primarily one of monetary system design. The Money Problem offers a way to mitigate the risk of catastrophic panic in the future, and it will expand the financial reform conversation in the United States and abroad. “Highly recommended.” —Choice

Rethinking Muslim Personal Law

Rethinking Muslim Personal Law
Author: Hilal Ahmed
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2022-04-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000573192

This volume critically analyses Muslim Personal Law (MPL) in India and offers an alternative perspective to look at MPL and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) debate. Tracing the historical origins of this legal mechanism and its subsequent political manifestations, it highlights the complex nature of MPL as a sociological phenomenon, driven by context-specific social norms and cultural values. With expert contributions, it discusses wide-ranging themes and issues including MPL reforms and human rights; decoding of UCC in India; the contentious Triple Talaq bill and MPL; the Shah Bano case; Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence) in postcolonial India; women’s equality and family laws; and MPL in the media discourse in India. The volume highlights that although MPL is inextricably linked to Sharia, it does not necessarily determine the everyday customs and local practices of Muslim communities in India This topical book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of law and jurisprudence, political studies, Islamic studies, Muslim Personal Law, history, multiculturalism, South Asian studies, sociology of religion, sociology of law and family law. It will also be useful to practitioners, policymakers, law professionals and journalists.