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The face value of nonowner-occupied real estate and business fixed assets is excluded from Zakah, according to most Fiqh scholars who argue that it has not been explicitly ordered during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (sas). This study aims to test the hypothesis that the role of these properties in the early Islamic economy was insignificant and, therefore, differed from today.

A qualitative historical analysis of primary Islamic sources and narrations from early Muslim historiography has been conducted to understand real estate sales and rent, construction costs and the number and size of houses owned by the Sahabah. In addition, inheritance reports and land gift records have been examined to obtain relevant information about the value of real estate. As for business fixed assets, the type, number and wealth of craftspeople as well as their tools have been analyzed to reveal their significance in comparison with today.

The findings of this study confirm the hypothesis that real estate for investment purposes and business fixed assets were quasi-non-existent during the lifetime of the Prophet (sas) and, therefore, irrelevant from a Zakah perspective.

This study intends to be a catalyst for the reconsideration of Zakah on these items of wealth and contributes to the Fiqhi discourse.

There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of Islamic financial literacy (IFL) while it is at the heart of our understanding of the overall financial system. To date, insufficient attention has been paid to Turkey, the Balkans and other potential Islamic finance hubs like Suriname. In fact, there have been no attempts to examine IFL in those regions or economies. The purpose of this paper is to test and validate the IFL scale developed by Dinc et al. (2021) in an international setting. By doing so, this study elaborates on possible antecedents and levels of IFL across countries and economic systems.

The design of the questionnaire used is based on the principles of Islamic finance and covers all the segments. The total number of collected observations is 3,579. This study uses the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to ascertain the factor structure and test the revised scale fit with the original form. Besides, IBM AMOS 25 Graphics is used for calculating the fit indexes for the scale.

The results from the CFA revealed that the scale has a good fit for its original and kept the four-dimensional structure. In addition, it also indicates that the predeveloped IFL scale is valid for different cultures, countries and individuals either having conventional or Islamic financial institutions preferences. Furthermore, results of empirical tests demonstrate that Turkey is significantly higher in Islamic financial awareness, whereas other countries' group is higher on all other subdimensions of the scale. On the other hand, female respondents indicate significantly higher levels of Islamic financial awareness, and male respondents show significantly higher levels of Islamic financial knowledge. Finally, the most prominent finding to emerge from the analysis is that the principles of Islamic finance are well accepted, except for some liberal views on the concept of “interest” (riba).

Because of the diverse demography of the collected sample observations, this revised scale has a homogeneous set of implications. This IFL scale can accurately measure the level of IFL attained by an individual, group, society or nation, as well as suggest necessary actions based on its four-dimensional structure.

This study tests the IFL scale by considering two key elements: increased sample size and vast geographical coverage. To ensure that the developed scale is universal, this study took into account more than 3,000 observations from 28 different countries. These amendments ensure the uniqueness of this paper and its originality.

This paper aims to determine the knowledge and attitudes of the physicians regarding human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), to emphasize that these patients exist and they will exist in the future and to raise awareness so as to prevent that their rights to treatment are revoked.

The survey was conducted via a link sent through an online system. Random physicians from 81 cities of the country were invited to the survey. The survey has 41 questions regarding knowledge and attitudes in total, including epidemiological information such as age, gender and title.

A total of 3,107 physicians has voluntarily participated in the study. In total, 2,195 (70.7%) are internal physicians and 912 (29.3%) are surgical physicians among the participant physicians. In total, 1,452 (46.7%) of the participants are specialist physicians, 608 (19.6%) of the participants are practising physician and the rest of it is physician assistants, academicians and dentists, respectively.

In this study, it has been found out that the physicians have a lack of knowledge on HIV/AIDS and they adopt a discriminatory attitude towards HIV-positive persons. HIV-positive patients who are exposed to discrimination and scared of being uncovered refrain from applying to hospitals for treatment, which puts public health into jeopardy due to the high viral load and these patients are faced with difficulties in coping with both medical and emotional load of the disease.