On 28th August, 2 weeks ago, I was invited as a speaker in Islamic Accounting Symposium organised by Universiti Islam Negeri (UIN) Shariff Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia. The topic given to me was Development of Islamic Accounting Theory. It is an interesting topic considering the emerging interest in the development of Islamic accounting especially in Islamic financial industry.
I started my presentation by explaining the movement of Islamization of knowledge. I defined the term "Islamization" from the perspective of Syed Muhamad Naquib Al-Attas. I also explained the systematic process of undertaking the Islamization from the well structured suggestion made by Almarhum Al-Faruqi. I argued that the challenges now is how to interact with the Islamic sources of knowledge and the ability of our Muslim scholars to be able to articulate the modern disciplines. Our Islamic accounting scholars have no choice but they must be able to deal with the Qur'an and the Sunnah. They also have to dig the Islamic heritage especially on the Islamic history of accounting.
I presented a table on the development of Islamic accounting from 1980s to now. I started with the overview of literature by Abdel Magid (1981). At this early stage, Abdel Magid presented the accounting implications of Islamic banking theory and practice. I also provided an overview of Gambling and Karem (1986) when they examined the theory of social accounting from the Islamic cultural and societal perspective. It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the Islamic accounting literature were mostly normative and theoretical. It is well understood as at the beginning, we have to contend with developing the skeletal theoretical framework.
By 2000s, I presented the list of emerging literature published in international refereed journals. I summarized the development in terms of methodology and I argued that more dynamic and pragmatic studies that used empirical quantitative and qualitative methods in developing their research framework. In terms of theory, there were many studies that adopted variety of theoretical stands such as Islamic accountability, Muslim culture and traditions, Islamic banking theory etc to frame their research.
Going forward, let us hope Islamic accounting theory will emerge as a new discipline that are sound theoretically and grounded in practice. With the emerging Islamic financial industry, the relevance of Islamic accounting practice is more obvious. Let us hope that there are more able Muslim scholars to come forward to further develop Islamic accounting theory.....
I started my presentation by explaining the movement of Islamization of knowledge. I defined the term "Islamization" from the perspective of Syed Muhamad Naquib Al-Attas. I also explained the systematic process of undertaking the Islamization from the well structured suggestion made by Almarhum Al-Faruqi. I argued that the challenges now is how to interact with the Islamic sources of knowledge and the ability of our Muslim scholars to be able to articulate the modern disciplines. Our Islamic accounting scholars have no choice but they must be able to deal with the Qur'an and the Sunnah. They also have to dig the Islamic heritage especially on the Islamic history of accounting.
I presented a table on the development of Islamic accounting from 1980s to now. I started with the overview of literature by Abdel Magid (1981). At this early stage, Abdel Magid presented the accounting implications of Islamic banking theory and practice. I also provided an overview of Gambling and Karem (1986) when they examined the theory of social accounting from the Islamic cultural and societal perspective. It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the Islamic accounting literature were mostly normative and theoretical. It is well understood as at the beginning, we have to contend with developing the skeletal theoretical framework.
By 2000s, I presented the list of emerging literature published in international refereed journals. I summarized the development in terms of methodology and I argued that more dynamic and pragmatic studies that used empirical quantitative and qualitative methods in developing their research framework. In terms of theory, there were many studies that adopted variety of theoretical stands such as Islamic accountability, Muslim culture and traditions, Islamic banking theory etc to frame their research.
Going forward, let us hope Islamic accounting theory will emerge as a new discipline that are sound theoretically and grounded in practice. With the emerging Islamic financial industry, the relevance of Islamic accounting practice is more obvious. Let us hope that there are more able Muslim scholars to come forward to further develop Islamic accounting theory.....
