The 2025 Islamic Finance Development Indicator (IFDI) assessed 140 countries, with the global average score declining to 11 due to new entrants scoring low in most indicators. The top 10 countries remained unchanged, led by Malaysia and the UAE, which excelled across all five indicators. Notable shifts include Bangladesh dropping out of the top 10 due to Islamic banking sector challenges, while Tanzania showed promise with Sukuk issuance and sector growth.
The author asserts that Islamic economics is currently the result of applying Islamic rules and injunctions (Fiqh) to the secular economic framework, and is not yet a separate discipline that fully replaces secular economics. The author notes that methodology is a messy and confusing area in both fields. He highlights that in Islamic economics, it is often wrongly treated as a research design or work plan. The author explains that economics is usually called ‘science’ and is seen to be built for achieving its objectives on some perception of rationality. Methodology is the ‘theory of theories’; in the field of economics it refers to the “process economists use to authenticate the knowledge about economic phenomena”.
Prof. Khurshid Ahmad argues that the Western model of development overemphasized industrialization, capital formation, and technological transfer while neglecting social and cultural factors. This approach adopted as it is by the third world countries has led to negative consequences, including increased poverty, inequality, and dependence on foreign aid. Prof. Khurshid Ahmad emphasizes that the Islamic concept of development focuses on human development across moral, spiritual, and material dimensions. It encompasses the purification and growth of individuals and societies, striving for comprehensive well-being and prosperity in this world and the hereafter. He lists the goals of development policy within an Islamic framework which include human resource development, expansion of useful production, improvement in the quality of life, balanced development, evolution of new technology, and reduction of national dependency on the outside world.
He wrote extensively on Islamic microeconomics giving the Islamic perspective to the theory of consumer and producer behaviour. He would go beyond philosophical debates and narratives to also discuss the operationalization of the analysis of consumer and producer behaviour. He wrote several books, book chapters and research papers on Economics, Microeconomics, Development Economics, Essays on the issues in Islamic Economics and Islamic Banking.
Islamic Economics Project 