Foyasal Khan: The year 1976 is marked as the birth year of Islamic economics when the first International Conference on Islamic Economics was held in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Before this, few scholars in Muslim world showed serious interest in the study of Islamic economics as a distinct branch of knowledge. Professor Dr Muhammad Abdul  Mannan was one of them whose award-wining  book titled “Islamic economics: Theory and Practice” was published from Lahore in Pakistan in 1970 when he was only 32 years old.

Prof. Mannan received international recognition as this book drew attention to the scholars across the Muslim world and was translated into several languages including Arabic, Turkish, Bengali, and Malay. Not only that since 1970, the book has been reprinted over 20 times and revised in 1986 and 2014. To many students and scholars of Islamic economics, this book is the first `textbook` on the subject.

He passed away on Wednesday, March 31 at Bangladesh time 11:30 am due to cardiac complications while undergoing treatment at the EvercareHospital in the capital city of Dhaka at the age of 83. With his demise, the Muslim world has lost a world-renowned authority in Islamic Economics, Banking and Finance and Bangladesh has also lost an amazing human being, a visionary, a life-long educator, and a driven philanthropist who played a key role in the establishment of many institutions for the upliftment of poor people, including the Social Islami Bank Limited (SIBL). 

This great economist was born in 1938 in an illustrious family in Sirajganj. After passing BA (Honours) and masters in economics from RajshahiUniversity, he began his career as a lecturer of Sirajganj college in 1960. Later, he joined East Pakistan Civil Service in 1963 and moved to the finance ministry in West Pakistan in 1965 and worked for the Pakistan planning commission. He moved to the USA in 1970 and obtained a PhD in economics from the Michigan State University, USA.

After his PhD,  he worked in Papua New Guinea as a professor (1974-1978). His career as professor of economics and Islamic finance began at  the King AbdulAziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as a professor in 1978. His joining at KAU is very inspiring. In 1976, he received a telex form Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to join in the Bank. He landed in Saudi Arabia in 1977. He met Egyptian eminent Islamic banker  Dr. Ahmad El Najjar and Turkish Islamic economist Prof. Dr. Sabahattin Zaim (1926-2007). Both recognized Prof. Mannan for his book’s Arabic and Turkish translation. They recommended Prof. Mannan joined the university instead of IDB to pursue serious research works and took him to the president of KAU. Thus, he joined KingAbdulazizUniversity knowing the fact that salary in the university is less than that of IDB and job is also a yearly-contract basis. This shows his utmost commitment to research and advancing the knowledge of Islamic economics.

He joined as the Chief Economist at IDB, Jeddah in 1982.  At IDB, he got an opportunity to come in touch with a galaxy of Islamic scholars. One of his notable colleagues was H.E. Dr. Abdullah Gül  (b.1950), the 11th president of Turkey who left the IDB to join the politics of Turkey in 1991. As an avid reader, he developed his personal library where he had all the collections of major works on Islamic economics since 1960.

Some of his major publications during his tenure at IDB are Islamic Economics: Theory and Practice (revised edition UK, (1986); The Making of Islamic Economic Society (Cairo, 1984); The Frontiers of Islamic Economics (India. 1984); Economic Development and Social Peace in Islam (UK, 1989); Understanding Islamic Finance (IDB, Jeddah, 1993); Structural Adjustments and Islamic Voluntary Sector with Special Reference to Awaqf in Bangladesh (IDB, Jeddah, 1995); The Impact of Single European Market on OIC Member Countries (IDB, Jeddah 1996); Islamic Socio-Economic Institutions and Mobilization of Resources with Special References to Hajj Management of Malaysia (IDB, Jeddah, 1996). 

While he was at IDB, the president Ahmed Mohammad Ali asked him to do research on waqf in the Muslim world. His colleague who was the Vice Chancellor of Marmara University in Turkey shared to him the thoughts of Ottoman scholars about the cash waqf. We also sent people to Al-AzharUniversity in Cairo to know about waqf. He took an initiative of translating some works on cash waqf into English from a huge collection of texts in the Ottoman Archives. Based on his study, he designed a cash waqf certificate and applied when he founded a social investment bank in 1995 based  on his three sectors (formal, informal, and voluntary) based banking model. Later, the bank’s name was changed into ‘Social Islami Bank Limited (SIBL)’. Prof. Mannan also returned to Bangladesh in 1996 retiring early from IDB for practically testing his hypotheses and doing something to improve the living standard of the underprivileged.

His idea of a cash waqf certificate was well-accepted by every Islamic Bank in Bangladesh. In his book “Islamic Capitalism and Finance”, Turkish scholar ‪Murat Çizakça described the introduction of Cash-waqf Certificate by Social Islami Bank Ltd as “The Mannan Model” because the small savers found the certificate as an avenue to contribute to the social welfare in the form of cash waqf for the first-time which breaks the age-old monopoly of the rich for waqf establishment. Until his death, he was fighting for the establishment of the World Social Bank as a new strategy of interest-free micro-credit to the poor and profitable investment for the rich.

Lastly, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was a leading light of the contemporary Islamic economic thought and global Islamic Economic movement as well who invested almost his entire professional life in the development of Islamic economics as a distinct discipline. Thus, throughout his life and works, he inspired generations of Islamic economists, bankers and financial experts as their mentor, guide, philosopher, and friend. Hopefully generations of scholars will benefit from the rich legacy of his intellectual contributions.

May Allah bless him for his truly extraordinary efforts in the field of Islamic economics, banking, and finance.

Author: Foyasal Khan is Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Islamic Thought. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from International Islamic University Malaysia. He can be contacted at foyasal.khan@gmail.com