Conferences

This paper summarizes main points in the existing Islamic economics literature on the subject of fiscal and monetary policies. It outlines institutional framework for these policies from the Islamic economics perspective. Some fresh points on the nature and role of government in the light of the Shari’ah principles, are also noted. The general goals for macroeconomic policies are discussed along with separate goals for each of the two policies. The argument is capped with a look at practical considerations in the actual working of both the policies.

This study was conducted to compare the financial performance of Islamic and Conventional banks to facilitate depositors, bank managers, shareholders, investors and regulators by providing true picture of financial position of Islamic and Conventional banks in Pakistan. Financial ratios were estimated from annual reports and financial statements i.e. Income statement and Balance sheet for the period of 2006 to 2009.

This paper studies the factor of competitive conditions of conventional and Islamic banks operating in the same market in the MENA region. We determine the level of competitiveness between the two types of banks by using the PR-H statistic of Panzar and Ross (1987) and the Lerner index. Our estimations show that banking sectors in MENA operate under monopolistic competition. Our results confirm that Islamic banks are significantly more competitive than conventional banks and they express a higher degree of market power.

The present study provides new empirical evidence on the impact of economic freedom on Islamic banks’ performance. The empirical analysis focuses on Islamic banks operating in the MENA banking sectors during the period 2000–2008. We find that the larger, more diversified, and better capitalized Islamic banks tend to be relatively more profitable, while credit risk and expense preference behaviour seem to exert negative impact. The findings suggest that greater financial freedom positively influence the profitability of Islamic banks operating in the MENA banking sectors.

The structure of Islamic banking is built upon two basic pillars; the abolition of interest and the use of profit and loss sharing mechanism. Today, Islamic banks put effort to keep the first pillar strong whereas the second pillar is abandoned to its fate. Our hypothesis is that one of the basic reasons of the poor performance regarding to profit and loss sharing mechanism is asymmetric information problem. In that regard, the aim of this paper is to develop problem solving approaches lessening the asymmetric information pertaining to profit and loss sharing instruments.

One of the strategies in the Financial Sector Master plan of Malaysia is to set the country as a global Islamic financial hub by 2010. Malaysian banking industry is expected to constitute 20 percent of overall global banking and insurance market in terms of assets, financing and deposits To achieve the Islamic financial hub status internationally, issues and challenges faced by the Islamic financial institutions should be highlighted and gives serious attention.

The present paper attempts to study the economic and financial crises of fifteenth-century Egypt, which was ruled by Mamluk dynasty. During the fifteenth century, especially in its first half, Egypt faced horrible economic crisis caused sometimes by rulers' ill-governance and corruptions and sometimes by natural catastrophe such as over flooding of Nile or its drying up, outbreak of epidemics, crop diseases, etc. In many cases two or more factors simultaneously existed. Financial crisis mainly emanated from monetary mismanagement.