Islamic Finance Week @ Penn

[Marwa Ibrahim]

Assalamo Alaikom,

The Penn MSA is pleased to announce the second inaugural Islamic Finance Week series that will take place on Wednesday and Thursday of THIS week! Please see the details below and pass on the information to your respective organizations. We would like to encourage you all to come out!

Thanks very much!

The University of Pennsylvania Muslim Students Association

presents the second inaugural

Islamic Finance Week Series

  

We cordially invite you to attend this week’s events, which feature some of the biggest names in Islamic Finance.  The intended schedule is as follows:  

 

Wednesday, March 18^th 7:30 PM: Taha Abdul Basser

 

       Taha Abdul Basser is the current Muslim Chaplain at Harvard University. He attended Harvard College in 1992, graduating with a degree in Comparative Study of Religion in 1996. He was a key speaker at the aforementioned 'Islamic Finance 101' seminar hosted by the U.S. Department of Treasury and is currently a member of the Harvard Islamic Finance Team.  He is currently finishing a dissertation in post-formative Islamic ethics and traditional Arabic literary theory.

 

Taha Abdul Basser will speak about how Islamic Finance's prohibition on the receipt or payment of interest and any transaction that involves gambling or speculation (a category which includes futures contracts, interest rate hedging, and other financial arrangement) placed it in a unique position during the recent financial crisis. He will give an introduction to the basics of Islamic Finance, including the constraints that Islam places on finance and how Islamic Finance functions and maintains competiveness within those parameters.  He will then elaborate on how the Islamic Finance industry emerged relatively unscathed from the crisis, and address what features our conventional finance system might be able to draw from the Islamic Finance model, as well as the potential drawbacks of an Islamic financial system. 

 

Thursday, March 19^th 7:30 PM: Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

 

      Shaykh Faraz Rabbani obtained a Bachelor's in Economics & Commerce from the University of Toronto in 1997. He is a researcher and teacher of the Islamic sciences, specializing in Islamic Law.  He is the Educational Director of SeekersGuidance.com, a partner and legal adviser with Straight Way Ethical Advisory, a board member and teacher with Bukhari Institute, a teacher with Razi Institute, and was a columnist for Islamica Magazine.  He has a number of published books, including Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation. 

 

      Shaykh Faraz Rabbani will cover the theological aspects of Islamic finance, including the role of finance in Islam and the function of money in an Islamic world-view.