Book Review

Masudul Alam Choudhury. Islamic Financial Economy and Islamic Banking

Abstract

The book was first published in 2016 by Routledge. It has 12 chapters and 260 pages. The author of the book, Professor Masudul Alam Choudhury, is a very famous academic scholar in the field of Islamic economics and finance, especially in addressing the epistemological underpinnings of Islamic economics and finance.
He has published numerous books and articles in the field of Islamic economics and finance. Moreover, he has lectured and did research in many prestigious universities including Harvard and Oxford. The author tries to constitute an epistemological framework for Islamic economics by introducing Tawhidi methodology in the book. For this purpose, he argues philosophy of knowledge in Islam and touches upon the relationship between religion and social economics. He then tries to employ the concept of Maqasid al-Shariah to evaluate the financial tools used currently in Islamic finance. Therefore, it could be stated that the author places the Tawhidi methodology at the center of his arguments/methodology in the book in order to introduce a theoretical framework for an economic system based on Qur’an and Sunnah.