JOURNAL OF CRITICAL LITERATURE AND HUMANITIES
Year:2019 | Volume:19 | Issue:9 |Papers Count:14

The book “ An Introduction to the Indexes of Islamic Banking” aims to pave the way for realizing the Islamic banking system through the development of its scientific foundations. Like many other scientific works, this book has both some positive and negative points which are enumerated in this paper. So, in order to highlight its positive points and help to correct the shortcomings, this paper tends to review the book critically using the analytical-descriptive method. The pros of this book are as follows: Addressing the issue of justice in banking and its indexes, critical approach to the process of interest-free in Iran's banking system and the introduction of an Islamic index in this regard, the critique of the banking system from the point of view of being infected with usury, often based on a philosophical approach and considering other Sharia compliant circumstances in Islamic banking (including jeopardy). On the other hand, the most important shortcomings of the book are as follows: weakness in indexing, noncompliance of indicators with Islamic banking theoretical foundations, no discussion on some of the most important religious rules of transactions in Islamic banking, and no thorough discussions.

Nudge introduces libertarian paternalism approach through empirical evidence on the behavioral biases in decision making and the impact of environment on them. The libertarian paternalism approach, which is called nudge, is any aspect of choice architecturing that changes people’ s behavior in a predictable way without changing any options, hence, retaining individuals’ freedom of choice. Because there is no neutral context, the authors argue that paternalism is inevitable. In such a situation, public policy can nudge people towards making better decisions that are also superior in the future. The authors suggest that experts should be hired to make sensible choices. In addition to problems of adverse selections by experts, the main challenge of libertarian paternalism is unstable preferences and inevitable choice between desirable outcomes in long run over short run. In the light of enormous amounts of attention absorbed by the Nudge that is apparent in several translations in Farsi, this paper tries to review and scrutinize the libertarian paternalism approach.

The book "The Islamic Iranian Pattern of Progress and Challenge of the Unsustainability of Sustainable Development" is a series of book in Iranian Islamic Pattern of Progress, written by Tohidinia and Ghadimi. This book has many positive and outstanding points. The key questions about sustainability of sustainable development and response to them in the framework of the philosophical foundations of the Islamic economy, focusing on Right and justice, are among the highlights and positive points of this research. Formally it requires edition and layout, and the reader can hardly achieve the problems and goals of the research. There is no evidence of the introduction which is responsible for clarifying and the introductions of the main parts are also unable to do so. The most important aspect of the content is that the authors of the work have opposite approach to conventional economic thought, and where they focus on the interpretation and overview of the ideas of the economists of the conventional economic, they are biased and based on the dominant approach of conventional economics. Therefore, to be more acceptable, there should be some literary, formal, and content revisions. It should also avoid the biased content of the material and must express the opposing views first and then criticize them.

In the present article, the book “ An Introduction to the Economics of Sanction: The Theoretical Foundations and the History of Sanctions in the World and in Iran” by Mehdi Toghyani et al. was reviewed. This paper consists of four parts, namely the introduction, presentation and description of this work, content evaluation, conclusion and suggestions. The results of this article show that this book is extremely flawed with regards to format and technicality, literary editing, referencing and citations. Though it is well-written, transparent and suitably segmented regarding its chapters, the book lacks internal consistency. Its reasoning, analysis, and scientific explanations are dissatisfying. Thus, this book has no academic value as a teaching resource.

Behaviral Finance and Wealth Mangement (2006), written by Michael Pompian and translated into Persian by Ahmad Badri, tries to show the deficiencies of classical finance in modeling investment behaviors based on the rational economic models. Using psychological approach, the most important characteristic of the book is its practical aspects, and it can be used as a handbook guideline for investment advisors which is the author’ s expertise. Most of the book is about introducing twenty behavioral and cognitional bios as well as some tests and case studies to recognize them. Although the translation is acceptable, there are some punctuation errors, and choosing some unfamiliar terms affects the readers’ understanding. Emphasizing the operational dimensions, the author has neglected the systematic and coherent approach to the theoretical and financial dimensions of the behavior. Moreover, there are some complete misconceptions about conventional finance, such as misconceptions about the curve of indifference and the nature of work in economics, ignoring normative controversies about economic rationality, emphasizing positive and empirical methods, and neglecting ethics and moral conflicts.

The book, Physics of Finance, reviews the historical story of interactions between physics and finance. The author of the book describes how models of physics focus on financial issues in an intertextual way and seeks to demonstrate the proliferation of physical models in finance and how the quantitative analysis of Quants (quantitative financial analysts)-as an antecedent of the 2008-2007 financial crisis or not-, will shape the future of financial knowledge. In this paper, while introducing the whole structure of the book, its various aspects of form and content are criticized based on the concepts of intertextuality and interdisciplinary studies. The intertextual approach is a level of analysis that examines the relationship between physics (as text A) and finance (as text B), and the interdisciplinary view is a level of analysis that describes their relationship as two distinct disciplines. These two disciplines have their own subject, method, and purpose. Following these studies, the main advantage of the book are the narrative form, the historical, precise look, and its main drawbacks are to ignore the clear critique of behavioral economists and other quantitative financial critics into financial physics.

Welfare Economics is a branch of economics that Muslim economists have made no effort for understanding, reviewing, and naturalizing it so far. The book entitled “ Textbook of Welfare Economics From Islamic Perspective” is one of the first works attempting to explain and review the common welfare economics, while revealing some aspects of Islamic teachings in this regard. So, such a difficult task is admirable. In the present article, we have referred to the difficulties as well as the necessity of such discussions, while reviewing some of the features of the book pertaining to its form and content to advance the knowledge in that area. Regarding the content, in addition to some internal problems and shortcomings in resources and references, there are three main criticisms; first of all, despite the complexity of the subject, the presented analysis does not have the power to convince the readers and make them confused. Secondly, the content of the book does not correspond to its title, it does not have many features of the textbook, it deals more with the topic of “ Philosophy of Welfare Economics” than “ Welfare Economics” . In terms of comprehensiveness, there are gaps in some vital issues, such as the “ Function of Social Welfare” . Third, there are some flaws in the use of specialized terms such as “ Objective or Subjective Welfare” , “ Individual and Social Welfare” , and “ Welfarism and Extra Welfarism” .

Inequality Reexamined is a 1992 book by Amartya Sen. In the book Sen evaluates different approaches to inequality, focusing mainly on his well-known capability approach and notes that the real equality of opportunities is possible only through equality of capabilities (or the elimination of unambiguous inequalities in capabilities). The author also argues that since inequality is a central notion to all contemporary social theories; therefore, instead of discussing ‘ Why equality? ’ the engaging question should turn out to be “ equality of what? ’ Since the book was translated to Persian language by Azita Golzadeh Geshlaghchaie and Parviz Ghasemi and published by Islamic Parliament Research Center of The Islamic Republic of Iran in 2015, the purpose of this paper is to assess the translation. Based on this criticism, it can be concluded that although the translation is well-written, it is faced many difficulties in the process of translation. It is not also an appropriate one communicatively and semantically because of the errors which were made.

If resistive economy studies want to solve our country's practical problems, they should at least have some properties: First, they must have strong theoretical foundations, second, they must provide solutions based on the country's challenges, third, each one must focuses on a particular area, and finally, it should be done by professional researchers in this study area. This paper reviews 76 scientific articles in the field of resistive economy in eight axes. Findings include: Major focus on the Leadership statements, Lack of attention to key problems of Iran’ s economy, Lack of operational solutions, Lack of holistic approach, Lack of case studies, Shallow economic performance evaluation studies, Lack of specialized writers and ultimately Lack of comprehensive understanding of resistive economy. In short, it seems that content analysis research has overtaken economic theories and economy realities. The present study intended to promote the discourse of resistive economics by using the four epistemological sources of Islamic knowledge, the intellectual system of leadership, economic knowledge, and practical experience at the same time. Monitoring the resistive economy studies is a very important factor in promoting the concept of resistive economy. Finally, it is proposed to help build a discourse to measure resistive economy in the country.

The development of the Islamic Iranian pattern of progress requires, in advance, theories that address its nature and clarify the limits of this model. This theory is the product of a second view of the pattern, and its rules can form the basis of the pattern. Therefore, the method of analysis in the theory of modeling is a philosophical reflection and a fundamentalist critique. In the book Islamic and Iranian Progress Pattern Theory (Axioms and Elements), the author has tried to present several concepts about Islamic and Iranian progress and finally enumerated the basic principles and elements of this theory. In this article, two parts of this book have been criticized. Firstly, formal and visual flaws including the design of the book and the way it is referenced and the quality of the resources used. Secondly, given the issues raised in the book, the present book cannot be considered as a strong and usable book in the field of Islamic and Iranian progress theory, and its use, whether as a book containing precise theories or as a textbook containing various theories is problematic.

The dynamics of any science depends on its fair and thorough critique. Undoubtedly, writing any new book along with its strengths will have its drawbacks. Thus, this paper aims to evaluate the book" The Theory of Interest and Conventional Banking" to improve its quality in the upcoming editions or to publish similar books by using descriptive and conventional analysis. Although there are not many resources available in the field of pathology of good rate, this book is very pivotal due to entering to this challenging topic. Results indicate that this book requires serious consideration in punctuation and content. The book can be improved by using scientific language, precise expression of the content, and accuracy in using specialized terms. Regarding the content, using scientific and accurate argument and sometimes lacking superficial interpretation, and also the rejection of the claims of the opponents of the interest rate without reviewing them, could be some shortcomings that can be considered to increase the quality of the book.

After the Islamic revolution, one of the most important actions that was implemented in the country was removing usury from the banking system according to Sadr theory. This theory was the base of writing usury-free banking law in 1982. But, after passing about four decades of Islamic revolution, the performance of banking system was criticized by economic experts. In this paper with review-analysis method, we survey on Usury-free banking law and then with qualitative content analysis method and using semi-structured interview, 118 meaning units, 25 concepts, and 8 categories named structure criticism about performance of usury-free banking were extracted. Ultimately, some suggestions to improve the performance of usury-free banking system have been offered.

Poor Economics analyzes the economic behavior of the poor. It is an application of behavioral economics to the economics of poverty and it seeks to provide an innovative solution to eight issues: hunger, health, schooling, population, risk, loans, savings and entrepreneurship of the poor using randomized control experiments. Although the book offers a new way to combat poverty, the book's evaluation shows that the limitations of the randomized control trial have not been addressed. Improving the performance of the poor without institutional reform has limited impact. There are no conclusions and suggestions for the eight issues discussed. With the marginal actions that this book suggests to improve the lives of the poor, the problem of poverty of about two billion people in the world cannot be solved. The impact of culture on the motivation and behavior of the poor has not been discussed, though the poor are heavily influenced by cultural beliefs and norms.

This book is one of the new books on financial development published in 2010. The book has seven chapters and each chapter is written by different authors. Each chapter seems to be a summary of a broader study, set up in a framework almost like the article. Although the content of each chapter is very valuable to study, it has not addressed many of the new issues affecting the relationship between the financial development and economic growth. On the part of the translation, this book does not have a fluent translation and requires a revision of the Persian translation and the Persian equivalents used for some English words. From the editorial point of view, it seems that the editing of the book has not been done carefully and the book needs to be revised again.