Masa Depan Ekonomi Islam

IAEI UK held the grand launching of IAEI UK branch and followed by international webinar entitled The Future of Islamic Economy. This agenda is attended by Bapak Astera Primanto Bhakti, M.Tax, On behalf of Chairman IAEI and General Director of Treasury, Ministry of Finance, also, Mr. Desra Percaya as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Kingdom, accredited to Ireland and the International Maritime Organization also attended to this agenda, the key figure of  global Islamic economy  Professor Habib Ahmed, Sharjah Chair in Islamic Law and Finance at Durham University and Prof. Dian Masyita, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at Universitas Islam International Indonesia also take part to this. 

Bapak Astera as General Secretary of Minister of Finance Republic Indonesia on behalf of Chair of IAEI has inaugurated the IAEI office in UK which led by Muhamad Rizky Rizaldy, PhD student in Sheffield University. The body organization is consisted of vary research clusters are Islamic Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Islamic Commercial Finance, Islamic Hybrid and Social Finance, Halal Industry and Value Chain, Islamic Sustainable Development, Islamic Productivity and Work Ethics, Islamic Economic Thought and Philosophy. These focus clusters were initiated to support the research and development of Islamic economy nationally and globally. Following to this inauguration, on behalf of IAEI Bapak Astera showed that there are three ways forward of Islamic Economy are i) Islamic economy must be universal, it should not be exclusively designed for Muslim but all human beings, ii) synergizing among stakeholders is critical to support the development of Islamic economy, the last, iii) Islamic economy should be represented beyond fiqh-based industry. On the other word, Islamic economy should according to the objective of sharia; protection of faith, life, offspring, intellect and wealth. 

There were more than 420 attendees participated to grand launching of IAEI UK which followed by the international webinar The Future of Islamic Economy. The first webinar session is lectured by Professor Habib Ahmed which explore the future of Islamic economy should cover many aspects such as sustainable economy, resilience, halal and knowledge economy and also equitable growth and shared prosperity. Accordingly, this had also led to discussion whether Islamic economy and finance should be routed to wellbeing instead of GDP growth. Prof. Habib responded that wellbeing should be the direction of economy, not only human beings but all Allah’s creation on this earth including the environment. Despite this, further issue would be required to define what and which wellbeing should be derived to articulate Islamic economy. In the perspective of western economy, the more it is earned means more wellbeing is achieved, conversely, referring to the Islamic economy perspective, it defines as balance. Homo-Islamicus in Islamic economy is not about optimizing the consumption to achieve welfare, so that it is critically important to define related wellbeing. Furthermore, in elaborating growth and development is also important as the way forward, while it should not also merely be defined as GDP growth but rather the distribution and its impact to the human life. 

In this SDGs economy era, it is crucial to mention the doughnut of economy which its idea was limiting the growth and creating the balance in order to achieve sustainability. Following that, in achieving wellbeing, it is important to define the wellbeing in order to design the level where Islamic economy could achieve it. It is also inseparable to mention the factors related such as human capital, social capital, natural capital, tangible and intangible capital which crucially relevant for the future of Islamic economy. 

On the following session, Prof. Dian Masyita has crucially highlighted that as living in VUCA era there were continuous uncertainty undeniably occurred, so that proper anticipation is important to be addressed. She mentioned that macro-micro economic policies has produced consequences in the life of the state, therefore the precise anticipation is highly related to this, especially Islamic economics is a part of economic system. Looking to the digitalization, there were recent transformation from 4.0 society toward 5.0 society which shows the AI and robot will disrupt human life. In this point, the humankind should be prepared and anticipated for further disruption, especially once looking at sharia-based economic and financial opportunities, it is highly relevant when Islam highly respect the science so that the further innovation should not neglect the Islamic values in this modern era. However, the big question would be does Islamic economic and finance as well as its industries ready for digital transformation?

All in all, the future of Islamic economy is concluded for two things, first, Islamic economy should be routed to its holistic direction of objective of sharia which articulated through sustainability, shared prosperity and wealth, resilience, and knowledge economy. Furthermore, Islamic economy must be aware of future transformation especially digital disruption. However, what makes Islamic economy distinct is its transformation and innovation values and its agility to adapt the disruption. 

Along with the IAEI UK inauguration, the designed program will be valuable and important to productively encourage the research and development of Islamic economy in Indonesia and global world. 

Contributor: Nuha Qonita