Academic’s book on Islamic Finance gets rave reviews

MUSCAT: The book on Islamic Financial System authored by Abdullah Belhadia, a lecturer at the Business and Economics, faculty at the Modern College of Business and Science, has been getting appreciable reviews from experts from the academic and banking sectors.

Titled What we know about the Islamic Financial System Procyclicality: A theoretical Approach and Comparative Study, the book is published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing and is available at leading bookshops in Oman and abroad.

With Islamic Finance popularity in recent times,

gaining the book examines some of the not-so-discussed features of the system. Oman has been a late entrant into the domain of Islamic Finance, having introduced the system in 2010, and the book fills the knowledge vacuum existing in the academic and professional areas with respect to Islamic finance.

Belhadia looks at Islamic Finance from the angles of financial accelerator and procyclicality, and argues that Islamic Finance, just like any other financial system, is prone to procyclicality though to a lesser degree. The book also offers for the first time mathematical models on the technical aspects of Islamic Finance and Banking.

“Procyclicality refers to the mutually strengthening interactions between the financial system and real economy causing to amplify business cycle fluctuations, and thus contributing to financial instability. If we look at the history of economic and financial crises across the world we see that procyclicality has been an inherent feature of the real and financial sectors of economy. The main feature of procyclicality is an underestimation or overestimation of the risks to which the banking sector is exposed. Islamic financial system too is impacted by procyclicality,” Belhadia said. Belhadia worked as a lecturer and acting chair for the accounting department at the College of Business, Komar University of Science and Technology (Iraq), before joining Modern College.