Public lecture: Politics and Development of Islamic Finance - The Cases of Turkey and Malaysia will be held on Saturday, May 21st.

2022.05.11

Over the past two decades, Islamic finance industry has been developing in many countries while global Islamic financial assets reached almost $3 trillion. To understand what drives the growth of Islamic finance industry, some studies investigated the impact of the Muslim population, income per capita, legal origin, trade openness, and culture on the development of Islamic financial markets. However, only a few studies paid attention to the effect of political factors on the development of Islamic finance.

There has been a fierce discussion and disagreements on regulating relations between state and religion throughout the Muslim world since the declaration of their independence in the 20th century. Therefore, political parties had different stances on defining borders between state and Islam. Some established a connection between the state and Islam or even give Islamic laws or institutions a privileged place in the legal?political . Others declared the secularity of the state or sought to protect the neutrality of the state from any Islamic affiliation. Therefore, sometimes the development of Islamic finance industry had been deeply part of political parties’ stance on state-religion relations. In this context, this seminar will elaborate on how politics led to different stages of development for Islamic finance industry in Malaysia and Turkey.