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Book part
Publication date: 16 September 2014

Sarah A. Tobin

This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”

Abstract

Purpose

This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”

Design/methodology/approach

The information is gathered from interviews conducted during over 21 months of ethnographic research and one month in participant observation and research access as an intern at the Middle East Islamic Bank (MEIB) in Amman, Jordan.

Findings

I found three modes for evaluating “Islamicness” when actors decide whether or not to become customers of Islamic banks.

Research implications

These modes demonstrate that Islamic banking is no longer the cultural protectionism of a relatively homogeneous community of Muslims. Rather it is a fraught and tense field for actors’ debates about types of moralities in the markets and modes of moral assessments of “Islamicness.”

Originality/value

The amplification of the individual and individual choice and authority in the moral assessments of Islamic banking may ultimately serve to unseat prior dichotomous theoretical framings of morality’s presence or absence as “Islamic” or “not Islamic” and “good” and “bad.” By unleashing to individuals the construction of morality in the markets, moral rights and wrongs, and moral evaluations, fragmentation of moral consensus in market practices will occur.

Details

Production, Consumption, Business and the Economy: Structural Ideals and Moral Realities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-055-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

To establish these definitions we revisit expression (5.3) of Chapter 5. Since this expression describes a phenomenological model of knowledge transmission from its epistemic…

Abstract

To establish these definitions we revisit expression (5.3) of Chapter 5. Since this expression describes a phenomenological model of knowledge transmission from its epistemic origin to the world-system by learning processes, therefore, we first summarize the arguments on what can be the nature of (Ω,S) in this expression. Our arguments were centered on the contrasting nature of moral absolutism and the ethical meaning so derived. This axiomatic core of the arguments stood up against moral relativism of both the rationalist and religious types on which is premised a different meaning of ethics.

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 20 July 2012

Masudul Alam Choudhury

There are the interesting words of Myrdal in respect of the universality and commonness of what a scientific problem means:From then on more definitely I came to see that in…

Abstract

There are the interesting words of Myrdal in respect of the universality and commonness of what a scientific problem means:From then on more definitely I came to see that in reality there are no economic, sociological, psychological problems, but just problems and they are all mixed and composite. In research the only permissible demarcation is between relevant and irrelevant conditions. The problems are regularly also political and have moreover to be seen in historical perspective. (Myrdal, 1979, p. 106)

Details

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: A Research Annual
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-824-3

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

In this book we consider the foundation of ethics to be the moral law. Contrarily, in mainstream terminology ethics is defined as values manifesting human behavior in congruence…

Abstract

In this book we consider the foundation of ethics to be the moral law. Contrarily, in mainstream terminology ethics is defined as values manifesting human behavior in congruence with certain civil conduct that are commonly agreed upon by society at large (Spencer, 1978). In reference to the social preference basis of ethics and morality we can adopt formalization by using two different approaches. One approach is to consider linear aggregation of preferences. The other is to treat morality and ethics within complex aggregation types.1

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

The generality of the universe is “everything.” In this regard, the Qur'an declares abundantly on the ultimate and perfect domain of the divine law in creation. This also means…

Abstract

The generality of the universe is “everything.” In this regard, the Qur'an declares abundantly on the ultimate and perfect domain of the divine law in creation. This also means the profundity of the divine law in explaining and applying to all things in the knowledge–time–space dimensions of the conscious universe. Such observations or insights that span the complete universe comprise the Signs of Allah (ayath Allah).1

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

The economic, financial, social, and scientific reasoning in Occidentalism is a profound example of the reasoning dichotomy caused by the problem of heteronomy. The duality…

Abstract

The economic, financial, social, and scientific reasoning in Occidentalism is a profound example of the reasoning dichotomy caused by the problem of heteronomy. The duality consequences of economic rationality and rationalism between the spiritual and material domains remain entrenched in all the sciences (Dampier, 1961).

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

We commence answering the above questions first with an extension of the definition of Economy given by Gerard Debreu (1959). Choudhury (1999a) has extended Debreu's formulation…

Abstract

We commence answering the above questions first with an extension of the definition of Economy given by Gerard Debreu (1959). Choudhury (1999a) has extended Debreu's formulation by introducing the learning parameter of unity of knowledge. The ethically induced economy in the light of conscious oneness is a complex relational universe of its micro-parts. These comprise prices, quantities, incomes, resources, preferences and production menus, and technological choices. These are studied in relation to multimarkets and their agents represented by vector-variables of each of the above-mentioned categories. All of these categories of the representing variables are mutually interactive according to the interactive, integrative, and evolutionary (IIE)-learning processes (explained earlier) by the medium of knowledge-flows that emanate from the episteme of conscious oneness.1

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

Oneness is the prime attribute of God. Divine oneness is the singular moral foundation of “everything” invoking socio-scientific intellection in the Islamic worldview. In this…

Abstract

Oneness is the prime attribute of God. Divine oneness is the singular moral foundation of “everything” invoking socio-scientific intellection in the Islamic worldview. In this ontological sense, this concept of conscious oneness means that the ultimate and indivisible absoluteness and completeness of creatorship, knowledge, will and power over all things, rest with God alone.1 Because God's oneness belongs to the domain of purity (Ikhlas), removed from the material and cognized worlds, it marks the topological domain of the fullness and purity of the knowledge stock. It exogenously by itself creates, governs, and acts upon the created universes of all kinds, abstract, and evident. By itself, the precept of oneness of God is not causally affected by anything. It creates all but is never created of itself, or by any other.2

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

Universality and uniqueness as precepts of the socio-scientific worldview have always been the quest of the highest body of intellectual inquiry. This has been the quest by both…

Abstract

Universality and uniqueness as precepts of the socio-scientific worldview have always been the quest of the highest body of intellectual inquiry. This has been the quest by both the Islamic and Occidental scholars for a long time now. In this postmodern era of epistemological criticism the search for the ultimate explanation of reality has intensified (Ruggie, 2002).

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2011

Masudul Alam Choudhury

In considering the role of ethics in Islamic economic and finance theory, it is necessary to understand the nature of ethics as human behavior derived from the foundation of Tawhid

Abstract

In considering the role of ethics in Islamic economic and finance theory, it is necessary to understand the nature of ethics as human behavior derived from the foundation of Tawhid (oneness of Allah=unity of the divine law) through the transmission medium of the Sunnah (guidance of the Prophet Muhammad). These are together taken up as the basis of spiritual guidance in Islam – hudal il-mutaqqin (Qur'an, 2:2). This foundation of Islamic epistemology in concert with the medium of epistemological discourse among the learned participants establishes the idea of a System and its embedded circular causation relations in view of the ethics in the Qur'anic world-system. It is also necessary to understand how ethics, as so derived from the epistemological roots and processed through the ontological investigation of values and directions for rule setting pertaining to given issues at hand, establish the premise of the shari'ah along with its ijtihadi (foundational Islamic investigation for rule setting) extensions.

Details

Contributions to Economic Analysis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-721-6

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