Hyderabad: A
first of its kind open lecture session on Islamic Economics was conducted in Hyderabad by POINTE (Platform for Occidental, oriental and
Islamic Networking in studying and Teaching Economics) on 27th May 2012, at the
Institute of Public
Enterprise, Osmania University Campus, Hyderabad. The topic of the lecture session
was ‘Introductory Lecture on Islamic Economics – An Institutional Perspective
for Inclusive and Universal Wellbeing’.
Opening the lecture session Mr Shashi
Bhushan, General Manager, Institutional Learning exhorted the Muslim community
to study the institutions practiced by the erstwhile successful Muslim regimes
and strive to be successful rather than be exploited.
He advised
Muslims to use the injunctions of the Qur’an to establish a judicious economy.
During
his tenure in the World Bank and in his close foundational association with
Al-Khair Co-operative Credit Society, Lucknow
and Sahulat Microfinance Institution, New
Delhi, he found that Muslims seriously lacked in
academic and vocational qualifications in spite of having necessary skills and
attitude.
He
wanted the Muslim community to adopt and use technology for their upliftment.
The main lecture on Islamic Economics
was delivered by Dr. Lubna Sarwath, Ph.D.[Indonesia]. Dr. Sarwath is
associated with the Trisakti University, Jakarta,
Indonesia.
She runs
the city-based Shausaa’ Foundation and is the Director of POINTE. Through her
power point presentation she explained how the law of unity of knowledge is
deduced as the world view from the transcendental concept of Oneness or Unity
of God(Tauhid).
Premising
on the episteme of unity of knowledge Dr. Sarwath illustrated her
categorization of knowledge and de-knowledge or unified knowledge and
de-unified knowledge. She defined institutions as a media for reinforcing and
giving sustainability to an episteme laden policy.
She
suggested establishing of Consultative Participatory Institutions (CPIs) which
have substance (theme); organizational form; recursive functional
knowledge-building and learning process, evaluation criteria and
self-sustainability as the characteristics.
Institutionalizing
CPIs would ensure that every other factor or variable would be represented at
each recursive policy or decision-making process thus generating unified
knowledge. Deunified knowledge formed from institutions without the CPI
characteristics is leading to chaos in the society both the human and non-human
world systems, she said.
She highlighted various
socio-economic institutions from the Qur’an such as Zakat (dues
or rich towards poor), Sadaqah (charity), Infaq(spending), Hisbah (Administration), Shura (Mutual
consultation), Tijarah (Trade), Riba (taking
more than due), Maslaha (wellbeing). She explained that the
socio-economic institutional interpretations from the Qur’an are meant for the
benefit of the humanity. Achieving wellbeing and translating the Qur’anic
injunctions to reality for the wellbeing is more important than using the tag
of ‘Islamic’ she clarified.
Taken from
two circles.
