Islamic Social Finance

This paper investigates the impact of remittance inflows on economic growth and poverty reduction for seven African countries using annual data from 1992-2010. By using the depth of hunger as a proxy for poverty in a Simultaneous Equation Model (SEM), we find that remittances have statistically significant growth-enhancing and poverty-reducing impact. Drawing on our estimates, we conclude that the financial development level significantly increases the remittances inflows and strengthens poverty alleviating impact of remittances.

With the increasing instances of malfeasance and frauds coming to light in the financial services industry, trust has become a key concern for customers. Fortunately, in the case of Islamic Finance, trust is a central tenet, and its importance can be seen through the emphasis of Amanah or trustworthiness that should be present in every financial transaction. However, it has been argued that the principle of trust has not been truly realized in Islamic Finance, or that there are still issues of distrust regarding anything which is obtrusively branded as “Islamic”.

Conventional (commercial) insurance involves an intolerable magnitude of gharar (uncertainty), and hence its prohibition in Shariah. In order to Islamize insurance, it needs to be reconstructed on different basis so that the inherent uncertainty associated with the concept of insurance will not invalidate its contracts.

With the increasing instances of malfeasance and frauds coming to light in the financial services industry, trust has become a key concern for customers. Fortunately, in the case of Islamic Finance, trust is a central tenet, and its importance can be seen through the emphasis of Amanah or trustworthiness that should be present in every financial transaction. However, it has been argued that the principle of trust has not been truly realized in Islamic Finance, or that there are still issues of distrust regarding anything which is obtrusively branded as “Islamic”.

Contemporary Islamic Finance is seen by many as operating in the 'push' mode, with incumbent players pushing their version of products in the market, rather than working in a 'pull' mode, where society's requirements would drive industry evolution. The Islamic finance industry has been criticized because the profit aspect of running operations overshadows the altruistic aspect of Islamic Finance (IF) and easily marketable solutions are more common than socially relevant products to benefit the wider communities.

This is Volume 1 of the 5 volumes’ book featuring selected papers in English presented to the 10th International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance, held in March 2015, Doha, Qatar.