JOURNAL OF ISLAMIC ECONOMIC STUDIES
Year:2014 | Volume:6 | Issue:1 (11) |Papers Count:6

This paper is the first attempt in economic literature in Iran toward the analysis of Soros Reflexivity theory from an economic methodological point of view. In this paper, the basic differences between economic and physical sciences are examined using a comparison between this theory and the prevailing approach in the mainstream economics. Reflexivity theory is based upon Popper’s falsification model, and at the same time criticizes strongly its application in economic analysis. Reflexivity in economic analysis leads to a unique and irreversible model, hence does not render economic behavior to fixed and rigid schemes. This is in sharp contrast to the behavior of economic agents in mainstream economics, which are reduced nearly to observers dealing with cost-benefit analysis of their decisions based on rational evaluations of markets. Despite the impassive attitude of economists in general to the reflexivity theory, this paper underlines the fact that Soros’s attempts, as the greatest speculator in the history and the most prosperous trader in financial markets, in writing a number of books in criticizing capitalism especially with regard to its methodological shortcomings, has produced new directions in the critical analysis of capitalism.

While the Islamic texts imply that Zakat is sufficient for poverty alleviation, the empirical researches show that the amount of Zakat is insufficient to remove poverty. To answer to these debates, different hypotheses are suggested. One of them is that zakat has been imposed only on gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates, raisins, cow, sheep, camel (according to the idea of prominent Jurisprudents of Shia), but the interpretation of gold and silver is different and can be generalized to the money. By this interpretation we can answer that doubt. This research evaluates the idea of Shia and Sunni Jurisprudents and calculates the potential capacity of Zakat on money and examines its sufficiency to eliminate poverty. The results show that Zakat on money calculated according to bank deposits of the private sector is considerable but that of coins and banknotes in not.

In the conventional secular economics the main factors of economic growth include: education, skills accumulation, creation and expansion of physical capital, using high-level technologies, achieving a great level of productivity and social capital. However, there are quite a few countries that are facing principle problems though they all have the above-mentioned factors. In addition, historically, there were nations that faced severe failure while having all of the required material elements of growth. From the perspective of holy Quran, the divine God do have two mechanisms to manage the world, one material and one non-material, these two do influence each other. What the human being achieve, using scientific approach, is just the material mechanism but the non-material mechanism can be fulfilled only thorough inspiration. The non-material components of economic growth are related to the second mechanism and should be found from the divine inspiration. In this paper, we try to discuss the effects of non-material components (like: Iman, Taqva, Shokr, Iqamah of Hudud, Istighfar, Tubah and Estiqamah) on the economic growth.

Islam believes that it is related to the stability and survival of any government in the field of Justice and the main components toward the development and perfection of society and the eradication of poverty and discrimination in the area of livelihood for the people living for equity in the distribution of population growth should move in together. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the distribution of income in 8 members of the OIC over the period 2010-1990. The Gini coefficients, the share of tax revenue in GDP, the share of government spending in GDP, per capita income and inflation rate were used as the independent variables and the final model was estimated using panel data. The results showed that the Kuznets hypothesis among Muslim countries can not be ruled out.

Considerable growth of Islamic banking industry during recent years makes it more interesting for researchers, to compare relative performance of Islamic banking system and its conventional counterpart. This paper, as a new approach, tries to compare optimal performance of these systems using stochastic optimal control. It is supposed that the loan mechanism, in both Islamic and conventional banking systems, follows the jump-diffusion stochastic process. Also, for the construction of the objective function in each model, the characteristics of Islamic and conventional banking systems are taken into account. Simulating stochastic differential equations, derived by solving the stochastic optimization problem in each system, enable us to compare the optimal performance of two banking systems. To create comparable situation, we assumed similar parameters for differential equations in both systems. According to the simulation results, the optimal performance of loans and deposits in Islamic banking are superior to ones in conventional banking system. Sensitivity analysis of the results to assumed parameter values show that the loan profit or interest rates are the most effective parameters, in such a way that, declining banking rates in each system could change the performance in favor of that system.

The optimal level of consumption is one of the issues that have been discussed for a long time in different school of thoughts. «Monkish consumption», «maximum consumption to maximize pleasure and utility of people, organizations and societies», «the average level of consumption» and «the rational level of consumption» are some of the suggestions that have been proposed by different theorists regarding diverse incentives and goals of school of thoughts. Therefore, it is of high importance to evaluate the dimensions of the optimal model of consumption considering the Islamic view. Focusing on the Islamic sources, this paper tries to evaluate different kinds of consumption indices from the Islamic point of view and shed lights on the limits of rational consumption in Islam. Considering this, the question that we try to answer in this research is that: “what is the area of rational consumption level in Islam?”. The strategy of this research is qualitative and the methodology used is of thematic nature. In addition, different sources and books are reviewed in this regards.Finally the extracted conceptual paper is presented in three areas which are: extremist consumption, rational consumption and non-extremist consumption. In each of these, their main components are introduced. The components of the extremist consumption include: Israf, Tabzir, Etraf, Izaee and Hers; The components of the rational consumption are: Justice, Fairness, Qavam, Qanaah and Shokr and finally the components of non-extremist consumption include: Iqtar, Bokhl, Imsak, Leamah, Osr and Haraj. To reach this end, the Islamic Shariah uses some rules including: no Osr and Haraj, no Dharar and no extreme behavior.