Although Islamic finance is one of the fastest growing segments of emerging global financial markets, its concepts are not fully exploited especially in the areas of economic development, inclusion, access to finance, and public policy. This volume is to improve understanding of the perspective of Islamic finance on economic development, social and economic justice, human welfare, and economic growth.

This handbook addresses the historical background of the Islamic world and reviews its basic past intellectual achievements. It studies social progress of these regions and sub-regions in comparison with other parts of the world. It uses large data sets and well established statistically weighted Indexes in order to assess the nature and pace of the multiple facets of social change in member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The handbook extensively discusses the main challenges confronting the Islamic nations in the social, economic, political, and ideological fields. Though it is recognizable that social change in the Islamic World is generally positive, it remains highly variable in pace and there is room to speed it up to the benefit of millions of deprived Muslim people. Hence, the book studies the different propositions and programs of action, such as the United Nations’ Millennium Development Campaign and the OIC’s Ten-Year Programme of Action to present an integrated and comprehensive agenda of action to help improve the situation in the Islamic World.

This book briefly surveys the evolution of the Western concept of development, recognizing the wider dimensions of human and economic development and the role of institutions and rules, which has moved toward the vision and the path of development envisaged in Islam.

This study aims to go beyond isolating and stating Islamic economic ideals in relation to Western conceptions, and to progress toward implementation. It offers an integrated picture of the programme that Islam offers to help realise the kind of well-being it envisages.

In this book Dr. Irfan Ul Haq examines the primary sources of Islam to extract and formalize from them the Islamic economic doctrines as well as the sociopolitical framework which guides the development of society. In particular, emphasis is placed on the problems of poverty, unemployment and lack of human resource development. What the study suggests is that if Islam is properly studied through an idealistic-rational integrated methodology and understood in its spirit and purposes, it reveals a core set of permanent values and principles that form the fixed dimension of Islam which then are applicable to virtually all human situations of society, polity and economy in all space-and-time. It is this in-built dynamism of Islam, demonstrated here with historical examples, that is utilized in approaching and providing solutions to contemporary economic problems and issues. Written for students of social science and economics and students of Islam. Economic Doctrines of Islam nevertheless addresses itself to all such individuals who are interested in seeking divine guidance in the realm of ethical social and economic development of human societies at large.

Muslim countries are facing serious problems in managing their economic life. Their inherited colonial ways of achieving economic aims are in basic contradiction to certain aspects of Islamic values and intended economic goals. Thus, it is imperative for Muslim countries endeavoring to escape underdevelopment and social injustice to turn to Islamic teaching and the Islamic way of harnessing human potentials to improve economic conditions and ascertain the necessary requirement for effective economic development.Islamic economics, as developed by Muslim jurists and social scientists (fuqaha'), needs to be recast in modern terms and developed further to deal with complex realities of the modern society. This book is one step on the long march to Islamizing the science of economics. It contains a selection of papers from the proceedings of the economic conference held in Cairo in 1988. These papers are a valuable contribution to the cause of modernizing Islamic economics.