the crisis of modernisation and islamicisation 339- Insurance within the frame work of the Sharì"ah,
- Interest-free banking,
- Zakàh, taxes, and fiscal policy,
- Economic development in an Islamic framework,
- Economic co-operation among Muslim countries,
- Public interest and the just price,
- Two surveys of contemporary Islamic economic literature, one
on “Muslim economic thinking”, and the other on, “Contemporary
Turkish literature on Islamic economics”; these proved very use-
ful for researchers in the field. - Teaching Islamic economics with a view to examining the pos-
sibility of introducing Islamic economics to university degree cur-
riculums, problems surrounding research on the subject and
possible solutions and remedies.
A particular observation could be made about the First Conference
on Islamic Economics. In addition to academics and practioners, the
participants included the Ulama". By including the Ulama", the con-
ference provided the opportunity for clerics and non-clerics to meet
and exchange views, spontaneously, on a crucial issue of Islamic eco-
nomics. This would help narrow the gap between the Islamists who
are keen on modernization, or tajdid, and the clerics who perceive
themselves as the preservers of the faith. A further observation is
that in their research papers Muslim economists were determined to
be seen applying Western analysis and technique, such as marginal
analysis, to Islamic economics. But Sardar does not seem to like it.
In his, “Islamic Futures, 1985”, he argues that Muslim economists
are too busy applying Western economic techniques to Islamic eco-
nomics, which, to him, would lead to a problem of defocus rather
than a desired depth of treatment, (Sardar, 1985). However, regardless
of whatever camp to which one would feel inclined, one would not
fail to recognize the importance and the volume of work that the
First Conference, and other contribution of Muslim economists that
has enriched the subject of Islamic economics. The languages of the
conference, interestingly, were both Arabic and English with papers
presented in both languages. The papers have been revised in the
light of the discussions that followed the presentation and published
in two volumes, one in English, incorporating English papers and
the other in Arabic embracing Arabic papers (see bibliography,
Ahmad K, and Sakr M for English and Arabic collections respectively).