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...

Islamic banks face restrictions in refinancing due to the guidelines of the Shari ́ah prohibiting financial contracts and transactions based on interest, gambling and speculation as same as due to the lack of liquidity sources such as an interbank market, a lender of last resort or an asset market. This is the first study with empirical cross-country results focusing on liquidity transformation ...

Muslim-majority countries do not use formal financial services (Honohon 2007).1 Even when financial services are available, some people view conventional products as incompatible with the financial principles set forth in Islamic law. In recent years, some microfinance institutions (MFIs) have stepped in to service low-income Muslim clients who demand products consistent with Islamic financial ...

There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions and now constitutes the second or third religion in the USA and many European countries. Islamic countries have differing economic status and per capita income and this has its impact on the renal replacement therapy provided (Table 1 w1x), as it is an expensive mode of treatment. The success of transplant...

Describing the Islamic financial system simply as 'interest-free' does not do justice to the system. Promotion of entrepreneurship, preservation of property rights, transparency and the sanctity of contractual obligations, which are crucial to any sound financial system, describe its essence. Today, Islamic financial and banking activities have reached an impressive size of over US$250bn, as co...

This paper investigates the ways in which terrorism is linked to education and poverty using data newly culled from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) documentary sources. The paper presents a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in terrorist activities by members of the Hamas and PIJ between the late 1980s and May 2002. The resulting evidence suggests that both high...

Context: The pilgrimage occurs from the 8th to 12th or 13th of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar, with a population of more than 2 million pilgrims in Mecca. Muslims have a series of verdicts in an appealing scenario such as Abraham the prophet. The Hajj pilgrimage is one of the most important verdicts in not only Islam but also all of the Abrahamian religions. Hajj is the 2...

BACKGROUND The position of General Internal Medicine in the Islamic countries in the Middle East has been investigated in the present study. MATERIAL AND METHODS The scientific productions of the countries in the area on Web of science database during 1990-2011 constitute were examined. RESULTS The result of the survey showed that the share of these countries in world scientific productions...

This cross-sectional survey aimed to provide an overview of tobacco control strategies in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR). A questionnaire to collate data on implementation of 6 major policies was developed based on the previously published Tobacco Control Scale and using MPOWER measures of the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative and the Tobacco Atlas. Only 3 of the 21 countries...

The events of September 11 have focused attention on just how bad things can be for women living under the rule of Islamic extremists. The Taliban’s inhumane treatment of women in Afghanistan has led many in the West to conclude that Islam itself defines a subordinate role for women that is incompatible with reproductive choice. In reality, however, Islamic thought is flexible on reproductive m...