Edinburgh Napier University

  At the first glance, the interest in Islamic finance seems growing at an impressive scale. The statistics reported in the media and academic literature are encouraging. However, one can still be critical about the extent of real interest gained, especially from non-Islamic countries. In terms of corporate financing, we observed relatively low penetration of Islamic financing in corporate firms’ capital structure mix.

We strongly believe that creating awareness about and effective exposure to Islamic finance is crucial to sustain the development of Islamic finance industry, or to turn the optimistic forecasts about its growth into reality. In this respect, the role of Islamic finance academics is key to success. The academics have to be proactive and creative in implementing strategic initiatives to create interest in Islamic finance among students from various backgrounds.

In this article, we share some strategic initiatives that we have worked on over the past few years in our efforts to promote Islamic finance through higher educational institutions. Our strategy in teaching Islamic finance has been principally based on comparative approach. At Edinburgh Napier University, the experience of teaching Islamic finance could not be more interesting, especially the participants were mostly non-Muslim students. The strategic initiatives implemented at Edinburgh Napier University were also 'exported' to Hong Kong.

There is, of course, a potential for Islamic finance to be as good as a profitable brand, which can be capitalised for private gains, if not fame. However, as academics in finance, our important agenda should be to promote a better and fairer financial system. Pursuing this social agenda strategically is perhaps more important than blindly profiting from a specific brand if we aim to capture big interest from the public at large.

The full article can be viewed at this link: https://issuu.com/islamicfinancereview-isfire/docs/isfire-june2015_complete_