Istanbul hosted the 6th Islamic Economics Workshop from April 6 to April 8 on the theme: Methodology of Islamic Economics. Held by the Research Center for Islamic Economics (İKAM) in collaboration with the Scientific Studies Association (İLEM) and Turkish Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics Association (İGİAD), the workshop included many important discussions such as methodology and other aspects of Islamic economics, which has faced many challenges since its inception. The Islamic Economics Workshop is one of the most influential organizations in the field and was held at the Istanbul University Congress Center and Istanbul University Rectorate Blue Hall with around 100 academics from 10 countries. Prominent figures from the world of Islamic economics presented and discussed 15 papers throughout the three-day event. The workshop covered issues such basic assumptions of the Islamic economic approach, philosophical foundations of Islamic economic methodology, approaches to economics in Islamic thought, the application of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) in traditional economic methodology to the modern world, the holistic use of fiqh and economics in Islamic economics, current methodology debates in Islamic economics and new ideas, theory-practice and policy relations in Islamic economics .This year, well-known figures from the field of Islamic economics from Turkey and abroad attended the event, including Monzer Kahf, Asad Zaman, Sabri Orman, Masudul Alam Choudhury, Akram Khan, Hakan Saribas, Seif Eldin Ibrahim, Valentino Cattelan and Necmettin Kizilkaya.
During the workshop, which had one panel and eight sessions, academics agreed that Islamic economics is a social science and that it is a unique economic system combined with the aim to provide people's well-being by employing the basic scriptures of Islam as a foundation.
Those who gave presentations at the workshop said that the work related to the methodology of Islamic economics should continue. Participants at the sessions said that Islamic economics addresses Muslims as well as everybody else.
The first sessions were on procedural debates in Islamic economics and what an economic discipline with reference to the Quran and sunnah should contain. The second session, Islamic economics was discussed from the perspective of fiqh.
The event also focused on history and loss of memory in the studies of Islamic economics as a source of Islamic economic methodology, while the current economic position of the methodology and views on the impact of rationalist thinking in Islamic economics were also addressed. Furthermore, the integration of Islamic economics into the social sciences, its dilemmas, the methodology in the studies of it in Turkey, its new generation and the relation between it and orientalism and also presented and discussed.
