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The purpose of this paper is to study the criteria of qualified ustadz and how the salaf boarding school leader (kyai) manages the ustadz in order for them to become qualified ustadz.

This study uses a qualitative research approach. Data were collected by in-depth interview techniques with kyai and mentor as primary source of data, while participants and alumni as secondary ones. The correctness of data from kyai and mentor then were cross-checked against data from participants and alumni.

This paper gives the following findings: the qualified ustadz is ustadz who has competencies of personal religious, professional religious, social religious, and life skills; while efforts undertaken by kyai are planning, organizing, implementation and evaluation.

The paper contributes to the Islamic educational institution in development management model for ustadz that has some stages, namely: need analysis, planning design, implementation and development evaluation. The proposed model can be used as a reference for leader of traditional Islamic education around the world in order to improve the quality of ustadz.

This study aims to discuss the model of community-based cooperation between pesantren businesses, using case study approach toward an Indonesian pesantren community.

The data in this research are gathered through through in-depth interviews with Hebitren managements and forum group discussion with the stakeholders of the Hebitren, which includes Hebitren managements themselves, Bank Indonesia and several related ministries.

The results show that pesantren business cooperations in Indonesia is related in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This cooperation model is expected to be able to contribute in the effort to accomplish SDGs, which include: no poverty (SDGs 1), quality education (SDGs 4) and partnership for the goals (SDGs 17).

The models of pesantren business cooperation are not comprehensive because of the various characteristics of pesantren and its model business. Moreover, Hebitren is one of national forum for business pesantren. So, that the results are possibly applicable.

This research highlights the importance of pesantren’s business unit cooperation management by improving the quality of human resources and business’s infrastructures. This study is a new research model that comprehensively discusses the pesantren community as a form of economic and business development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first model of inter-pesantren business unit network in a pesantren business community comprehensively.

This study aims to evaluate the compliance of online Islamic FOREX products with Islamic jurisprudence principles and determines the degree of similarity or difference between Islamic and conventional FOREX products.

This study involves the collection and analysis of secondary data from online sources (i.e. four Islamic FOREX Web sites selected on the basis that they appeared on two Islamic FOREX Web site lists) It also undertakes content analysis of the rulings of jurisprudence scholars on one of the Web sites.

There is no evidence to suggest that the technical processes underpinning current Islamic FOREX products are any different to those underpinning conventional FOREX products. Also there are major contradiction and ambiguities in the rulings offered by the jurisprudence scholars about the permissibility of the products.

The study relies on the analysis of secondary data. Further research that will involve interviews with banking industry employees in both conventional and Islamic banking sectors would provide a better understanding of: how financial products are created and managed and the role of bank regulations in creating and managing different financial products.

It would seem that Islamic FOREX is simply rebranding of conventional FOREX. The paper calls for a modern-day definition of usury (riba).

The way Islamic FOREX is marketed today to online users as synonymous with gambling, and, although branded as Islamic, the actual technical processes that underpin Islamic FOREX products are the same as conventional FOREX products and therefore not compliant with Islamic principles.

This research explores the marketing of Islamic FOREX products.

This paper aims to present the idea of using classic Islamic finance instrument Salam to conduct import transactions. It documents the complete framework of the proposed model. At present, this mode is not used by Islamic Financial Services Industry although it is capable of becoming a viable risk-sharing instrument.

First, the features of existing import financing products are explored and compared with various contractual features of Salam. Second, a discussion on why banks are reluctant in practicing Salam is included. Third, the pricing techniques, accounting treatment and collateral arrangements related to proposed product are discussed. Finally, the feasibility of this product in present industry environment is assessed.

The proposed model carries certain features that make it a true risk-sharing product. For example, it suggests changing bank’s role from intermediary to entrepreneur and favours better alignment of risk between the related parties. This work has also proposed using market-based returns, instead of the existing interest-based benchmarks, for pricing the contract. To practice this product, a dedicated effort of all the stakeholders is required. The product features can contribute to the goal of practicing responsible financing, engrained in true economic reality.

The present work is a technical paper, and the product features may be improved in the light of feedback from the industry and academia.

The proposed model views Islamic bank as a trader instead of a lender, who will assume the effective ownership of imported goods before selling them to the customers. The pricing structure will also be unique, as the margins will be decided upon the basis of market-driven returns of the underlying assets. Indeed, by entering into such contract, Islamic Banks will be exposed to market-related risks. They will be required to design their risk management frameworks accordingly.

It is widely argued that many Islamic finance products are similar to their conventional counterparts in substance. There is a need for the instruments that carry risk sharing attributes. This paper aims to bridge this gap by investigating the potential of classical Islamic finance product Salam for conducting foreign trade transactions.

Purpose – Differing opinions about the status of cash waqf are not new among jurists. Several studies have been conducted relating to this issue. This chapter discusses cash waqf from the perspective of certain scholars in Indonesia, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI, Indonesian Scholars Council) and the scholars of Aceh, and the fatwa (opinion) on cash waqf.

Methodology/approach – Data for this study were collected from interviews and academic literature to reach general and specific conclusions. The study was conducted in Aceh, Indonesia.

Findings – Different views exist on the validity of cash waqf between the MUI and the scholars of Aceh. The MUI has declared that the practice of cash waqf is allowable and valid, while some scholars of Aceh reject it except when the cash is exchanged (istibdal) for permanent assets.

Originality/value – MPU scholars and pondok scholars are not in agreement as to the legality of cash waqf. Pondok scholars reject the practice of cash waqf except if the money is substituted (istibdal) into a fixed asset. This is so even when many other scholars of Aceh ruled that cash waqf is still valid even if it is not converted into a fixed asset.

Al-Qaeda is conventionally portrayed as a monolithic, hierarchical organization whose activities – coordinated by the network's leader Osama bin Laden – are the source of international terrorism today. Al-Qaeda is considered a radical tendency within the broader Islamist Salafi movement, legitimizing its terrorist operations as a global Islamist jihad against Western civilization. Al-Qaeda's terrorist activity today is considered, “blowback” from long finished CIA and western covert operations in Afghanistan.

The conventional wisdom is demonstrably false. After the Cold War, Western connections with al-Qaeda proliferated around the world, challenging mainstream conceptions of al-Qaeda's identity. Western covert operations and military – intelligence connections in strategic regions show that “al-Qaeda” is a network whose raison d’etre and modus operandi are inextricably embedded in a disturbing conglomerate of international Western diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence policies today. US, British, and Western power routinely manipulates al-Qaeda through a complex network of state-regional and human nodes. Such manipulation extended directly to the 9-11 hijackers, and thus to the events of 9-11 itself.11This paper advances an original argument based partially on research in Ahmed (2005), supplemented here with significant new data and analysis. Also see Ahmed (2002).

Arafat and Rabin's famous handshake opened a new stage in the Middle East peace talks. Recent delays in the process have centered more around economic than political issues. Two main controversies revolve around means for distributing aid funds and the development of viable financial networks in the Israeli Occupied Territories. These agenda are reviewed from the viewpoint of promoting U.S. trade interests in the region. Islamic banks, if they are granted licenses by the Israeli government, may provide an effective means for distributing funds, while at the same time promoting U.S.‐Arab mercantile trade.

This paper aims to study the Pesantren’s role in alleviating the poverty in rural region, and the discussion is connected to the theory of local economic development and Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah.

This paper engages a case study and an interview to get insight into the subject matters.

This study finds that the roles of an entrepreneur and a stimulator are evident from the sampled Pesantren in empowering the local economy and the underprivileged community. Further, inasmuch as the fundamental concept of local economic development is in line with Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah, the evidence from the sampled Pesantren is also representative of its role in actualising it. This study is relevant for academics, local government in Indonesia and other related stakeholders.

This paper credits both theoretical and practical implications for academics and the government. Firstly, by discussing the concept of prosperity from the Western and Islamic perspective, this paper creates a notion that these theories are harmonisable. Secondly, by sampling a Pesantren to draw how these two concepts are applied to advance a rural economy, this paper comes out with the hands-on advice for Indonesian government to legally engage with the existing Pesantrens to perform its rural development programmes.

While a Pesantren’s role in empowering a disadvantaged community is comprehensively investigated, an accurate evidence is documented which can best challenge its radicalism and terrorism issues.

This is the first study to harmonise the theory of local economic development and Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah and presents the practical evidence from a Pesantren.

This paper aims to explore the moral aspect of qard (loan) from shariah perspective, and attempts to examine whether each interest-free qard is qualified for the Quranic term qard hasan (loan par excellence)? Also, the study attempts to establish the key constituents of qard hasan in the light of the primary sources of shariah, and seeks to define the legal status of the interest-free qard which fails to qualify for the “term” qard hasan.

This study uses both the primary and secondary sources of shariah to examine the desired character of qard hasan. It employs pure qualitative paradigm to analyse and interpret the data.

This study finds that in between the qard hasan and qard ribawi, there exists a third category of qard too, which neither qualifies for the former nor does fit under the definition of later.

The findings presented in this paper illuminate the blurred line of contemporary understanding of qard hasan. The study adds original value to the corpus of contemporary literature on qard; as it collects and enumerates the ten vital conditions of qard hasan, without which, even an interest-free qard holds no virtuous sanctity in the sight of shariah.

There is almost a consensus amongst Muslim scholars that the most crucial problem faced by the Muslim world is in the prevailing ideas (including sanctification, archaism, the common paradigm, the absence of the role of the intellectual, etc.) which formulate people’s thoughts and determine their options. There will not be a genuine renaissance of Islam without updating these ideas and emerging from the cocoon of the past. This can be done through a modern approach which would respond to the changes by looking towards the future rather than towards the past. This study aims to identify the intellectual aspects of this crisis and how this crisis has formed and influenced Islamic banking.

To analyse this crisis, the methodology called causal layered analysis (CLA) is used, which is drawn from the field of strategic foresight and designed by Inayatullah (2002). CLA is designed on the basis that the way to understand the nature of the problem will determine the proposed solutions, by diving through the surface phenomena of the problem to the depth of the “motors” of the crisis.

The author finds that Islamic banking is the offspring of its incubator ideas and reform, and the change and progress of Islamic banking can only deal with a critical approach of these ideas; Islamic banking promotes itself as an alternative to conventional banking, but this has not been achieved except on the level of form rather than substance; Islamic banking is a movement within a variable reality, and inertia in specific form and context will keep it in a state of crisis and may lead to its demise.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study showing the roots of the ideas making up the fabric of banking in the Muslim world and the repercussions of intellectual crisis on Islamic banking.