Today is my turn to present my paper. It was in Session 12 themed Islamic Economics in Theory and Practice, at 1400 to 1530 in Room 103 of the Qatar National Convention Centre. Together in the Session were another six presenters from various countries. The room was packed as the theme of the Session seemed to be one of the prime themes discussed in this conference. Moreover, prior to this Session, in the morning, there was quite an interesting panel discussion on the state of the Islamic economics.
Two stances were observed in the morning panel discussion. Firstly, it was a stance that it is okay to have a mixture of the Islamic and conventional economics as is the state of the mainstream Islamic economics today. Secondly, there was a dissenting view to the first stance which aruged that Islamic economics was based on a wrong paradigm, hence the necessity of an authentic Islamic paradigm to give birth to an original Islamic economics. The papers in my session seemed to be the continuation of the panel discussion and attracted a lot of participants. Interestingly, all the papers were in favour of the second stance, including mine, or at least have posed a critical anaylsis of the first stance.
 |
| The packed room during the Session |
As the previous day, and especially after my presentation, I had an opportunity to meet old and new friends, as are reflected in the following photos.
 |
| With Prof Mehmet Austay of the Durham University, UK |
 |
| R-L: With Dr Raditya Sukmana from Indonesia and Naail Mohammed Kamil from Ghana |
 |
| L-R: Prof Habib Ahmed and Prof Mehmet Austay from Durham University, UK |
 |
| With Honorouble Zubair Omar from Saudi Arabia, one of the pioneering initiators and long-live supporters of Islamic economics, banking and finance, who plays his role from behind the scene. I have met him last year when I was a Visiting Scholar at IRTI of the IDB in Jeddah. He is a member of the Trustees of the IRTI. |
 |
| Prof Rodney Wilson of the Durham University standing second from right. |
 |
| With Prof Ahmad Youseri of Egypt |
 |
| With Dr Asad Zaman of the International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan, who has put forward his dissenting stance against the contemporary mainstream Islamic economics and presented another paper in the same Session as mine. |
 |
| The speakers during my Session with the moderator, Prof Mehmet Austay (2nd right) |
 |
| Old friends from Islamic Research Training Institute of the IDB: Sajjad (left) and Dr Abdelateef Bello (middle) |
After Isyak, we were brought by Muhammad Yasir's brother and Fadli to Suuk Waqef for dinner and sight seeing. Nights were the only free time that we have during this Conference. Apart from many Arab restaurants that become eating place for many like Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur, there is a Malaysian restaurant here, selling amongst other foods, char koey teow for about QR30 and roti canai for about QR20 per plate. So I was told by the Malaysian conference participants who ate there. This is not surprising as the cost of living here in Qatar is quite high. As opposed to the shopping mall we went last night, here in Suuk Waqeef we could feel that we are actually in an Arab country.
 |
| Dinner at an Arabic Bandar Aden Restaurant |
 |
| Our dinner "appetizer" shared by five of us: Ratib bread and beef agda |
 |
| The desert: Maasob gate of Aden. In between the "appetizer" and the desert, we shared a big plate of mandi rice with lambs and chicken |
 |
| One of the avenues at Suuk Waqef |
 |
| With some Arab customers in a honey shop at Suuk Waqeef |
 |
| The owner of the honey shop mixing honey with habbus sauda, ginseng, etc |
 |
| Another avenues at Suuk Waqef |
 |
| The Malaysian restaurant at Suuk Waqeef |
 |
| Another site at Suuk Waqef with Muhammad Yasir's brother (left) |
 |
| Another avenue at Suuk Waqeef where customers were having foods and drink relaxingly |
 |
| A snack shop at the Suuk |
No comments:
Post a Comment