Islamic finance has gripped the world with a strong fervor and passion. Interest in this discipline has proliferated to almost 60 countries, going beyond the Islamic world to the leading global financial centers. For quite sometime, United Kingdom has adopted an open door policy and provided a level playing field to Islamic finance and now Singapore is following its lead. Every day, Islamic fin...

There is a serious lack of empirical studies on Islamic banking. This paper attempts to fill that gap to some extent. Using data for the 1990-98 period, several hypotheses and common perceptions about the practice of Islamic banking have been tested. The performance of Islamic banks has been evaluated using both trend and ratio analyses. For this purpose, some objective “benchmarks” for various...

the belief in certain fundamental myths in an investigation of different peoples and nations’ mythologies is plausible. these fundamental myths are the origins and prototypes of the more recent ones. there are several reasons why fundamental myths, either or partially, may be forgotten. however, they will never become entirely extinct. over long periods in history and in the process of dusting ...

abd al-wahhab al-bayyati(1926-1999) is one of those poets whose poems make frequent use of myths. drawing on the ancient myths, and making modifications to them, he tries, while enriching his literary work, to express his views more cogently he does not simply retell the traditional myths, rather, he present new and richer interpretations of these myths and using defamiliarization, conveys his ...

This paper presents empirical evidence accumulated across the last two decades to challenge seven long-held myths in psychiatry about schizophrenia which impinge upon the perception and thus the treatment of patients. Such myths have been perpetuated across generations of trainees in each of the mental health disciplines. These myths limit the scope and effectiveness of treatments offered. Thes...

BACKGROUND To validate the Persian version of the simple shoulder test in patients with shoulder joint problems. METHODS Following Beaton`s guideline, translation and back translation was conducted. We reached to a consensus on the Persian version of SST. To test the face validity in a pilot study, the Persian SST was administered to 20 individuals with shoulder joint conditions. We enrolled ...

Development of robust spoken language technology ideally relies on the availability of large amounts of data preferably in the target domain and language. However, more often than not, speech developers need to cope with very little or no data, typically obtained from a different target domain. This paper focuses on developing techniques towards addressing this challenge. Specifically we consid...

Islamic art is unique because its form and function permeate both distance and time. Since the birth of Islam, Muslim artists around the world have created pieces of art that share an uncanny resemblance to pieces created by other Muslim artists through common themes, appearances, and applications. These similarities include calligraphic elements, exaggerated depictions of plants and animals, a...