ISLAMIC ECONOMICS AND POVERTY MANAGEMENT

Alhamdulillah, by the grace of Allah SWT, two writings of mine have been recently appeared in The Brunei Times (Brunei Darussalam) and The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society (USA).

The one in The Brunei Times entitled "6 Challenges of Islamic Economics", appeared in two series on the 5th and 6th February 2013 (http://www.bt.com.bn/e-paper/index.html). It is the revised version of my speech at the International Conference on Islamic Economics and Economies of the OIC Countries held in Kuala Lumpur recently. It stretches out the challenges faced by contemporary mainstream Islamic economics related to its framework, concepts and methodology used, system and society established, and scholars of Islamic economics themselves.

The other one in the The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society entitled "Spirituality and the New Form of Poverty Management", appeared in Volume 2, Issue 2, 2013 (http://ijn.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.200/prod.104). It is the revised version of my paper presented at  the Second International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society, organized by The Religion and Spirituality in Society Community, at Robson Square, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada from 20-22 February 2012. It expresses the idea that when spirituality is included in the management of poverty, the target group becomes selective as not all could be rich as well as not all could be poor. The determinant factor is the soul. Those with rich soul (high faith, iman) have the choice to either becoming rich or poor while those with poor soul could not be rich but need the most help to overcome their poor soul and their poverty. The meaning of the rich and poor soul is deliberated in this paper.