'Gatekeepers' of Islamic financial circuits : analysing urban geographies of the global Shari'a elite

This paper analyses the importance of 'Shari'a scholars' in the Islamic Financial Services (IFS) sector, which has been a growing global practice since the 1970s. Based on Shari'a Law, IFS firms provide banking, finance and insurance respecting faith-based prohibitions on interest, speculation and risk taking. Although IFS firms operate across a variety of scales and involve a range of actors, this paper focuses on the transnational capacities of Shari'a experts employed by IFS firms. These scholars use their extensive knowledge of Shari'a Law to assess the 'Islamic' character of a firm's operations, and assist the development of Shari'a-compliant products. As they embody necessary entry-points into Islamic circuits of knowledge and authority, members of what we dub the 'global Shari'a elite' can be regarded as 'gatekeepers' of Islamic financial circuits. Drawing on a comprehensive data source we present a geographical analysis of Shari'a board membership, nationality and educational background of 253 Shari'a scholars. The results show that the global Shari'a elite connects a limited number of IFS hubs (e. g. Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Manama, and London) to knowledge and authority networks falling outside 'mainstream' business and service spheres

Critical issues in Islamic education studies : rethinking Islamic and Western liberal secular values of education

This paper examines two sets of interrelated issues informing contemporary discussions on Islam and education that take place within both Muslim majority and minority contexts. The first set of issues concerns the academic conceptualisation of the study of education within diverse historical and contemporary Islamic cultural, intellectual, political, theological and spiritual traditions. After a critical examination of the current literature, the paper suggests that ‘Islamic Education Studies’ offers a distinctive academic framing that incorporates an interdisciplinary empirical and scholarly inquiry strategy capable of generating a body of knowledge and understanding guiding the professional practice and policy development in the field. Lack of conceptual clarity in various current depictions of the field, including ‘Muslim Education’, ‘Islamic Pedagogy’, ‘Islamic Nurture’ and ‘Islamic Religious Pedagogy’, is outlined and the frequent confusion of Islamic Education with Islamic Studies is critiqued. The field of Islamic Education Studies has theological and educational foundations and integrates interdisciplinary methodological designs in Social Sciences and Humanities. The second part of the inquiry draws attention to the lack of new theoretical insights and critical perspectives in Islamic Education. The pedagogic practice in diverse Muslim formal and informal educational settings does not show much variation and mostly is engaged with re-inscribing the existing power relations shaping the society. The juxtaposition of inherited Islamic and borrowed or enforced Western secular educational cultures appears to be largely forming mutually exclusive, antagonistic and often rigid ‘foreclosed’ minds within contemporary Muslim societies. The impact of the educational culture and educational institutions on the formation of resentful Islamic religiosities and the reproduction of authoritarian leadership within the wider mainstream Muslim communities have not been adequately explored. The study stresses the need to have a paradigm shift in addressing this widely acknowledged educational crisis. The formation of a transformative educational culture remains the key to being able to facilitate reflective and critical Muslim religiosities, and positive socio-economic and political change in Muslim majority and minority societies. This inquiry explores a significant aspect of this crisis by re-examining the degree to which Islamic and Western, liberal, secular conceptions and values of education remain irreconcilably divergent or open to a convergent dialogue of exchange, reciprocity and complementarity. The originality of the paper lies in offering a critical rethinking of Islamic Education through mapping the main relevant literature and identifying and engaging with the central theoretical issues while suggesting a new academic framing of the field and its interdisciplinary research agenda

The National Muslim Forum Nepal: Experiences of Conflict, Formations of Identity

With Nepal\u27s recent transition to state secularism, the politicization of Muslim religious identity has emerged with increasing vitality. One particular pan-Nepali Muslim organization, the Rastriya Muslim Mane Nepal (National Muslim Forum Nepal), offers a window into the complex relationship between national and religious identity that animates this politicization. Through analysis of the National Muslim Forum\u27s earliest discourses, produced between 2005 and 2006, both immediately before and after the people\u27s revolution that resulted in the declaration of Nepal as a secular state, this essay highlights the ways that experiences of conflict coupled with a national political transition shape and contribute to this politicization. It also offers a picture of some of the ways in which conceptions of the nation and religious community come together to help define the forum\u27s call for a new Muslim religio-political identity across a diverse Nepali national population. [excerpt

Psychometric properties of two Islamic measures among young adults in Kuwait: the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam and the Sahin Index of Islamic Moral Values

Given the importance of developing reliable and valid measures in the psychology of religion, and recent growing interest in developing empirical studies within an Islamic context, the present study discusses the properties of two specially designed instruments: the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam and the Sahin Index of Islamic Moral Values. Data were provided by a sample of 1,199 students, selected from secondary schools in six educational districts in Kuwait. The sample comprised 603 males and 596 females; 812 were 17 years of age and 387 were 18 years of age. The data support the internal consistency reliability and construct validity of both instruments and commend them for further research

Transformation Into the “God”: Study of Critic–elaborative Axiology of Islamic Education with Philosophical Sufism

Melahirkan al-insan al-kamil merupakan tujuan tertinggi (ultimate aim) dari pendidikan Islam dan tasawuf falsafi. Konstruksi manusia ini bisa dimunculkan melalui pendidikan yang menginternalisasikan sifat-sifat ketuhanan dalam diri subjek pendidikan. Karenanya, antara filsafat pendidikan Islam dengan tasawuf falsafi memiliki relasi dialektis untuk mewujudkan manusia menjadi “Tuhan”. Oleh sebab itu, artikel ini fokus pada konstruksi tujuan pendidikan Islam dalam mewujudkan al-insan al-kamil yang memiliki kesamaan dengan tujuan tasawuf falsafi. Tujuannya, untuk menganalisis dan memahami konstruksi upaya transformasi manusia menjadi “Tuhan” sebagai orientasi aksiologis pendidikan Islam dan tasawuf falsafi. Karenanya, artikel ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan jenis penelitian kepustakaan untuk mengurai fokus dan tujuan riset tersebut. Sedangkan analisa data digunakan metode content analysis dan interpretasi. Artikel ini menyimpulkan bahwa proses mewujudkan tujuan pendidikan Islam yang diintegrasikan dengan tujuan tasawuf falsafi mampu mendorong lahirnya manusia ideal (al-insan al-kamil). Manusia yang memiliki kesempurnaan pada aspek intelektualitas, emosional, dan spiritualitas sebagai sosok khalifah maupun abdullah. Manusia model ini di dalam formulasi tasawuf falsafi merupakan manusia yang telah “menyatu” dengan Tuhan; atau manusia yang mentransformasi diri menjadi “Tuhan”. Implikasi praktis riset ini, pendidikan Islam pada dimensi teologis-filosofis harus terus menyatukan orientasi aksiologis (pendidikan Islam dan tasawuf falsafi) untuk diaplikasikan dalam proses pembelajaran pendidikan agama Islam

Educational policy, policy appropriation and Grameen Bank higher education financial aid policy process

The paper talks about higher educational polices and their process of policy appropriations, policy as practices, policy as symbolic, policy as rituals, policy as myths, policy backward- mapping and policy-forward mapping, multi-stage policy implementation process, street-bureaucrats planners, and policy reform process. It critically looks at pros-and-corns of different educational policy theories and their applications in education, and the higher education student financial aid different policies, strategies and products and their impact on the college students. The paper also narrates the higher educational policies and methods of need-based, merit-based, means-test-based grants allocation and loan disbursement and their impact on student academic achievements. Moreover, it discusses the policy process model that has both agendas and multiple streams that consider looking at policy designing problems, solutions of the problems and their usefulness to SES students. Additionally, the paper narrates the Grameen Bank higher education student loan policy making process, although there is no higher education student financial aid services are not exist in Bangladesh. Literature reviews, conversations with higher education students, contextual analysis, and the author personal working experience incorporate here. The study finds for policy improvement, policy analysis is vital because policy analysis can explores usefulness of the policy for public well being and for effectiveness of the policy appropriation.Center for Social Economy Learning and Workplace, University of Toronto. -- York Center for Asia Research, York University. -- Indiana University Bloomington

The Urban Anthropologist as Flâneur; the Symbolic Pattern of Indonesian Cities

Cities are places full of symbols. In the past decades, Indonesian cities have become the cradle of urban symbolism studies. In this article, the author presents the results of these studies. The cities researched differ tremendously, ranging from the national capital to provincial capitals and small towns; some of them, such as Jakarta, are purely colonial in origin, while others are more or less traditional in character. Some of them have a top-down symbolic structure, largely the product of government activities, while others have symbolic configurations which have a more grassroots character and are based in the religious domain. The methodological aspect of urban symbolism fieldwork is explored by the introduction of the concept of flâneur

The Empowerment of Hate

CAIR provides legal and advocacy services to people who have been targeted by bias.The organization employs 35 staff attorneys and has a presence in 22 states. These attorneys are tasked to assist every client in obtaining a just and fair resolution to their case, free of charge.While CAIR's focus is to win justice for each client, processing these cases provides the organization with a wealth of data. During the 2014-2016 period, CAIR staff processed a total of 11,427 incidents of potential bias.This report assembles this data to offer a larger and more comprehensive reflection of the civil rights implications of Islamophobic bias in the United States.CAIR is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, regardless of faith. We do so with gratitude for the protections already established through the long, and often ugly, struggles of other targeted communities. As we work to help our clients, our broader goal is to set legal precedent, pass laws, and shape a social environment in which every American enjoys the basic right to be free from unequal treatment