The third International Divine Economics Conference, organized by the Islamic Social Sciences Forum (ISF) of Hadi Foundation in collaboration with esteemed universities and AJK Medical College, commenced with great enthusiasm in the month of May, 2023 in capital city of AJK, Muzaffarabad.
The noted author is one of the pioneer contributors in the field of Islamic economics. He has written on methodology of Islamic economics from time to time. He is an objective thinker who had made critical evaluation of both mainstream economics as well as Islamic economics on some aspects. In principle, he wants Islamic economics to be an analytical field. He expects that mainstream economics shall avoid bias against religion and should not undermine and disregard knowledge that comes from religious texts. Some knowledge that comes from religious sources dates back to centuries. However, such knowledge is still applicable today. Instead of arriving at same conclusions and reinventing the wheel, it is not unwise to pay heed toward the knowledge that emanates from religion.
Divine Economics framework provides an empirical basis of behavioural comparison between religious and non-religious agents with regards to their economic and non-economic choices. It incorporates the methodological framework of mainstream economics for the study of religion and economics in each other’s perspective. It looks at religious behaviour from the lens of ‘economic good’ and ‘economic behaviour’ in markets where the choice has economic considerations, such as relative prices, opportunity cost of time, income effect and substitution effect. However, reliance on stated preferences, overlap between religious and non-religious activities, inability to observe the motivation and intention behind choices and to judge the quality of religious activities are some of the challenges in this research framework.
Islamic Economics Project 