The rapidly growing Islamic economy is a way of life in which the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world participate with increasing vigour. The idea has moved well beyond Islamic finance and a few Sharia compliant products, to become an economic model that covers a wide range of economic and lifestyle issues. The Islamic economy came through the global financial crisis with relative calm and this success was referred to by several speakers at this week’s second Global Islamic Economy Summit (GIES) in Dubai, which gathered more than 2,000 policymakers, thinkers and business leaders to see how to further strengthen the Islamic economy. The GIES is becoming the main forum for regular exchange of ideas on how to foster this important new economic territory.
Mutual awareness of different elements of the Islamic economy is a crucial part of encouraging global development. This is why the summit celebrated the new ‘Salaam Gateway’, which is the first online platform for intelligence, news and data related to the Islamic economy. The idea is to build a practical tool for businesses and allow the increasingly Sharia-sensitive Muslim professional to access information on all sectors of the Islamic economy and global databases available.
This practical step, which has been sponsored by Dubai, is one way in which the Islamic economy is moving from its previous legalistic minimum — that required all activities to be compliant with the behavioural norms and moral foundations derived from the Quran and Sunnah and the prohibition of interest on loans — to a much wider definition that is neither socialist nor capitalist, but seeking a “third way”, which aims to reduce the gap between the rich and poor, discourage the hoarding of wealth and encourage its active use through trade and investment using the principles of profit-sharing and venture capital. The emphasis on mutual sharing of risk is part of the Islamic economy’s moral position of reducing exploitation and greed in the way the economy works.
