islamic economic renaissance 351what they saw as the perils of secularization and to bring it back to
the purity, and practicality, of Islam—a major objective of Islamic
revivalism.
Various factors seemed to have ignited the religious feeling among
these writers to develop the work on Islamic economics by the turn
of the second half of the twentieth century. First, the intensive activ-
ities of religious groups that aimed at mobilizing Muslims towards a
return to the values of Islam and to the belief in it as a way of life
in the contemporary Muslim society with a view to providing an
opposition to the adopted secular model. When Islamic economics
was among the challenging areas, the call for the revival of Islam
helped prompt a call for a revival in the Islamic economics literature.
The Muslim Brothers, jama"at al-ikhwan al-Muslimùn, which was founded
in Egypt in 1928 by Œassan al-Banna (1906–1949) and Society of
Islam, jama"at-i-Islami, founded in Pakistan in 1941 by Abù"l a"ala
Maudùdi (1903–1979) who carried the banner of re-Islamisation in
Pakistan in his endeavour to mobilise the masses, are two distinct
examples of these societies. Whether the writers of the mid twentieth
century were affiliated to these organized religious societies or not
is difficult to establish, nor is it the concern of this book, but it can
be said that the strong call of these societies for the return to Islam
as a source of values and strength to Muslims and a way of life to
Islamic society in modern time had helped create the urge to write,
the expectation to read, and the willingness to change. Furthermore,
it must be noted that Al-Azhar University of Cairo has helped a
great deal in generating graduates of high caliber in both Sharì"ah
studies and other scientific subjects of which economics is one. Notably,
Al-Azhar scholars, professors and graduates have made a number of
contributions in Islamic economics in Arabic.
Sponsoring Institutions and Organisations
Of the academic institutions that fostered research on Islamic eco-
nomics in the early part of the twentieth century, Al-Azhar University
of Cairo stands out, as not only the oldest Islamic and one of the
oldest universities in the world but also as an academic institution that
paid particular attention to Islamic research and researchers. The
University has established the Academy of Islamic Research as an
affiliated academic body within the University to set up conferences
and conduct research. The first of these annual conferences of the