Introduction to Islamic Economics

Hossein Askari is the Iran Professor of International Business and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Before coming to GW, he was a professor of Business and Middle Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and assistant professor of Economics at Tufts University. He has also served on the executive board of the International Monetary Fund and as consultant to a number of governments, institutions, and multinational corporations. He received all his university education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a BS in civil engineering and a PhD in economics. Zamir Iqbal is a lead specialist at Finance and Markets (F&M) Global Practice of the World Bank. He heads the World Bank Global Center for Islamic Finance Development in Istanbul. He has more than 20 years of experience in risk management, capital markets, and asset management at the World Bank Treasury. Islamic finance is his research focus, and he has coauthored several books on Islamic finance topics such as banking risk, financial stability, and risk sharing. His most recent coedited book, Economic Development and Islamic Finance, was published by the World Bank in 2013. He earned his PhD in international finance from the George Washington University and serves on the professional faculty at the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University. Abbas Mirakhor is currently the first holder of the chair of Islamic Finance at the International Center for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF). He served as the dean of the executive board of the International Monetary Fund from 1997 to 2008 and as the executive director representing Afghanistan, Algeria, Ghana, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, and Tunisia from 1990 to 2008. He has authored numerous publications and research papers on Islamic finance; among them are Introduction to Islamic Finance (Wiley 2011), Risk Sharing in Islamic Finance (Wiley 2011), and The Stability of Islamic Finance (Wiley 2010).