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economic banking and finance. Its training programmes reach Muslim
member countries and countries with Muslim majorities, in Africa,
Asia and the Middle-East. It also incorporates researchers of high
caliber. But unlike ICRIE, IRTI is not a teaching institute generating
academic degrees; rather it focuses on research, professional training
and, with its Information Centre, it provides valuable information to
members countries in various industrial, banking and financial fields.
In addition to these activities, IRTI organizes seminars and inter-
national conferences, guest lectures, visiting researchers programmes
for senior researchers and academic professors, translation of major
works, and provides a vital linkage with other research centers and
universities in the field, and financial support to Islamic research pro-
jects in both Islamic universities and Western universities with a cur-
riculum in Islamic economic, banking and finance. Once more, IRTI
is a major achievement in the field of Islamic research and training.
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
The IIIT was established in 1981 with a view to polarizing the efforts
of Muslim scholars and intellectuals to work towards re-modeling the
contemporary Islamic thought and knowledge in the field of social
science and humanity studies so as to help revitalize the role of Islam
in present society. The idea of establishing the Institute emerged at
an international seminar held in Switzerland in 1977 that incorpo-
rated some 30 leading Muslim intellectuals to discuss the crisis of
Islamic community, the Ummah, and the means to take Islam for-
ward to next century. The members came to believe that there was
a need to establish an international institute of Islamic thinking that
would contribute to providing Muslims with an in-depth examina-
tion of the rich heritage of their religion and suggesting means
of solving their Islamic intellectual problems. The first major work
undertaken by the Institute a year after its establishment was the
organization of an international conference on the “Islamicisation of
knowledge”, which was held at the International Islamic University
in Islamabad, Pakistan. Operating from its headquarters in Hendon,
Virginia, USA, the IIIT organizes seminars, symposia and confer-
ences, publishes valuable research, academic theses and textbooks,
and provide support and scholarships to researchers in the field. The
publications of the IIIT, in English and Arabic, cover a wide range
of series the main examples of which are as follows (IIT website):