Salman Ahmed Shaikh's Blog, page 21

Distinctive Profit Rate Benchmark in Islamic Banking

As a substitute to T-bills, the governments can issue Treasury Sukuk Ijarah Bills to source funds. For profit benchmarking, data from trading operations can be used in which the government sets prices to reflect its target profit rate knowing the cost as well as the selling price. This target profit rate can become a benchmark for issuing Treasury Sukuk Ijarah Bills and affect the other rates of returns in Islamic short term financing instruments.

Zakat Rate as Base Risk Free Rate in Post-LIBOR Era

A key maxim of Islamic jurisprudence suggests that in the matter of commercial transactions, everything is deemed permissible unless explicitly stated otherwise. As long as the transacting parties adhere to the principles of Islamic jurisprudence while applying the benchmark to their transaction, it is acceptable to utilize a consensus methodology. In place of risk free rate or base rate of expected return on investment, some thinkers in Islamic finance suggest the possible use of Zakat rate.

Islamic Banking and Transition from LIBOR

From the Islamic finance industry perspective, an important criterion for the industry wide adoption of any benchmark, particularly one that is published every business day, is the simplicity, reliability and robustness of its methodology.

Economic Growth Rate as Benchmark for Islamic Finance

Growth rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the most frequently suggested alternative for Islamic finance transactions. GDP measures value of production in a given year. This alternative avoids reference to interest based benchmarks and reflects pure economic activities in a comprehensive way covering output of all sectors plus prices.

Constituting an Islamic Social Welfare Function: An Exploration through Islamic Moral Economy

The noted authors explain that the main contribution of this study is to present a model in which juristic and moralist positions are endogenized and augmented to constitute Islamic social welfare function.

Roundup of World Zakat Forum 2021

The discussions in the forum emphasized on creating synergy between Zakat and Waqf and integrate both the institutions together in institutional design and delivery as well as in public and social policy in member countries.

Building Nations: Case of Afghanistan

Mired by extended conflicts and foreign occupation, if a country like Afghanistan is left with weakly funded government with half of the population below the poverty line, it can cause severe economic and even humanitarian crisis. To deal with the current humanitarian and economic crisis post-US exit, following are key points of consideration.

Reflections on Shaikh Saadi’s Thoughts

Shaikh Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest poets of the classical literary tradition. Here are few pearls of wisdom from his writings.

Monetarists, Monetary Policy and Morality

The monetary policy until today is conducted without paying any heed to the socioeconomic consequences. Despite the fact that central banks usually have very strong research wings and they are equipped with lots of resources, it is rare to find a study administered by central banks and relating the monetary policy to the socioeconomic indicators except for employment and growth.

Hazards of Institutionalized Charity

When a person is helped by a co-worker, neighbour, friend or any other individual in confidentiality, the ego and self-respect of the receiving individual is not hurt or hurt as much as in receiving such benefits publicly from an institution.