Call for papers: "The Challenge of Islamic Economics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education.

Islamic economics remains unfamiliar to most economists with orthodox training. Yet Islamic economics challenges orthodox economics and at the same time offers illuminating insights and effective policies to help us more equitably provision. In this special issue, we invite empirical as well as theoretical papers along the following broad themes:

The Empirical Challenge: The teachings of Islam emphasise spending on others, generosity and a spirit of service while condemning greed, selfishness and the pursuit of wealth. Empirical studies support generosity and cooperation as more accurate descriptions of human behaviour. What is the empirical record of Islamic economics?

The Practical Challenge: Some have complained that Islam's ideals are remote from current practice. How well are Islamic teachings embodied in contemporary institutions, and how can the fit be improved?

The Moral Challenge: Islam is strongly committed to economic justice for all human beings (including all nations, races and religions). This explicit normative stance provides the foundation for Islamic economics and contrasts with more law-like and mechanical approaches in both neoclassical and heterodox economics. How does Islamic economics' conception of justice differ from that of Rawls, Nozick, Sen and others in the Western tradition?

We invite papers on the broad, general theme of the past, present and future for Islamic economics: what can we learn from the past; what is the state of Islamic economics today; and what can we expect of the future?

We also welcome contributions highlighting unique features of the Islamic approach to private property, consumer theory, financial regulation, market regulation, natural resources, finance, ethics, environment, and sustainability. In particular, the following areas, both theoretically and empirically, are of special interest:

• Islamic concepts of property as trust. How does this contrast with capitalism?
• Islamic conception of public property and comparison with the "Commons" problem and Elinor Ostrom's work.
• Contrast between greed, selfishness, self-interest and scarcity of conventional economics compared to generosity, abundance, prosperity and human welfare in Islamic economics
• Islamic consumer theory incorporating prohibitions on excessive and wasteful spending as well as hoarding and accumulation.
• Articulating a theory of the firm committed to maximising provision of service to humanity under the constraint of financial viability, compared to the neoclassical profit-maximising firm.
• Islamic ideals and institutions: charity (via Awqaf), microfinance, health, education, insurance and finance. Relevance and applicability of historical Islamic solutions of free provision of social services based on private initiatives backed with government support.
• Normative concerns for justice and equity is the foundation of reasonable solutions to all economic problems in Islamic economics. Theoretical, historical, and contemporary illustrations.
• Globalisation and Islamic economics.
• Social responsibility and Islamic eonomics.
• Insights from the Qur'an and its translation into practice by the Prophet and his followers in appropriate economic institutions and practices.
• Islamic rules that all earnings must be based on permissible (Halal) methods, not on gambling or speculation, which does not create any real value. How does this contrast with traditional finance, and its relevance to the global financial crisis?
• Applications of Islamic economics to environmental and sustainability.

Important Dates

Deadline for abstracts: 1 September, 2014
Abstract decisions: 30 September, 2014
Deadline for full papers: 31 December, 2014