ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø

 

First International & Interdisciplinary Conference on Trust and Islamic Capital

Saturday & Sunday 30th and 31st May 2015

Hosted by, The Centre of Islamic Finance, University of East London
London, U.K.

The best papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of Society & Business Review by Emerald

The Conference Theme

Competitive Capital Creation and Religious Values, with reference to Islam: Can they produce trust among communities?

Post September 11, 2001, Muslim communities globally have witnessed a continuous erosion of trust, although with varying degrees in different societies. This has profoundly affected a vast and disparate range of multilingual, multiethnic, multinational and multiregional Muslim communities. The international and interdisciplinary perspectives afforded by this conference is meant to re-envision how trust in the broadest sense is conceived between different communities, and especially between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. One of the main avenues along which trust underpins everyday practice, ordinary habits, pragmatic decisions and theoretical questions is capital. So, this conference turns to capital, and specifically Islamic capital, as the standpoint or venue through which to understand trust, conceptualize and grapple with trust and inculcate and produce the conditions to foster trust.

As an integral part of the grant-funded project in the U.K., ‘Muslims, Trust and Cultural Dialogue’ (), this conference turns the broader cultural and social questions addressed in the project towards the more focused arena where Islam, economics and business practices come together. Trust underwrites all movements of capital: Financial, social, political and cultural. This conference tracks the tensions and contestations trailing different configurations of trust making, afford locale-specific insights into the contours of trust, locate the antecedents of e-trust (successes and failures) and imagine how trust might be contextually renewed, re-imagined and even developed where it has not previously been possible or foreseen.

To do so, this conference seeks to imagine and interrogate Islamic capital in a capacious way: The history of different strands of capital associated with many practices of Islam; the philosophical questions that underlie Islamic capital and are raised by it; the creation and management of capital through the development and exchange of products and services associated with religious injunctions as well as religious values; and the range of ethical issues engaged by Islamic capital.

The focus of the conference is on Islamic capital values, businesses, brands and markets. We encourage submissions that may examine the topics in relation to other religions or discuss comparative cases. As an interdisciplinary and international conference, we want to include papers on, but not limited to, business management, marketing, finance, and economics, which may address historical, philosophical and religious questions. The conference takes a critical approach to general trends and misconceptions and encourages creative perspectives and empirical research. It also solicits contributions from practitioners, as well as evaluations of business practices and case studies. We solicit papers from three thematic areas:

Theme 1: Towards better understanding of the role Islamic values play in business

Examination of Islamic capital: Historical and contemporary contexts; its flows; trade; values and ethics

• Ethical branding and religious values
• Relationship marketing, trust and religious values
• Credit, debt, equity and religion
• Legislation, compliance and philosophical ethics: Continuities and differences
• Businesses’ Fatwa shopping and trust, e.g. Sharia’a compliance and Halal License; Sharia’a law and quality standards
• Competitiveness in Islam
• Consumerism, materialism and Islamic values
• ‘Sharia-compliance’ as a form product/market positioning

Theme 2: Establishing trust among communities and the role of businesses associated with religious values

The role of religiously associated brands and products/services in building bridges across cultures

• Business as a social interaction platform and the creation of trust
• Behaviours and practices of Islamic businesses and how they vary across communities; the moderating effects of contextual/institutional variability in building trust
• Marketing and branding practices in a religious environment and trust
• Finance practices in a religious environment and trust
• Islamic finance and trust
• Digital marketing, social media, trust and Islamic businesses e.g., online dating and marriage websites
• The role skepticism, doubt and fear plays in the competitiveness of businesses associated with Islam

Theme 3: Enhancing businesses capabilities to serve Muslim and non-Muslim consumers

Towards better understanding of consumer buying behaviours towards products and services associated with religious values such as Islamic finance

• Muslims’ purchase intensions and decisions
• Branding for Muslim consumers
• Marketing Islamic finance in the west
• National images and buying decision of brands/products associated with religious/Islamic values
• Branded nations and internationalisation of businesses and brands that originated in Islamic communities.

Keynote Speakers:

Ali Al-Shamali, PhD
Chairman, Al Madina for Finance & Investment
Group Chairman, Al Salaam Investment Group, one of the fastest growing groups in the Middle East and in Kuwaiti Stock Exchange manages over a billion pounds worth of assets and runs 6 public companies among 32 other private companies.

Andrew Fiddaman MVO
Executive Director and one of the Founders of The Prince’s Youth Business International (YBI)
International speaker on youth employment issues and sits on the advisory boards of various organisations dealing with leadership skills, enterprise development and social responsibility
Member of the Royal Victorian Order appointed by The Queen

Jonathan A.J. Wilson, PhD
Senior Lecturer Advertising, Branding & Marketing Communications
Editor-in-chief: Journal of Islamic Marketing
Advisory Board Member: Networked Scholar – Marketing, Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
Columnist: Huffington Post, Thomson Reuters, Aquila Style, Marketeers Magazine

Conference Venue:

The International Conference on Trust and Islamic Capital (30th and 31st May 2015), is the first of its kind. It will be homed in the Centre of Islamic Finance which is part of University of East London.

The conference will take place at the beautiful site of University of East London from Saturday 30, 2015 at 9am to Sunday May 31, 2015 at 1pm. Check the University unique position on the Royal Dock with brilliant views over the water and the City Airport or the state-of-the-art new University Square in bussing Stratford near the London 2012 Olympic village and its brilliant stadium, and UEL Sports Dock that hosted many of the games and the American team in 2012,

Travel and accommodation is to be paid by participants. The conference organization will provide a list of hotels.

Paper Selection Process:

Papers will be selected based on a double-blind review process. The initial submission should comprise an abstract of no more than 250 words, which describes the proposed paper. The abstracts will be peer-reviewed, and if accepted, this will be followed by a submission of full papers, which will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference in an abbreviated form. Best papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of Society & Business Review published by Emerald, indexed and abstracted in ABI and Cabells. See more information at:

• Abstract to be submitted before 18th August 2014
• Notifications of accepted abstracts: the week of 29th September 2014
• Full papers to be submitted before Thursday 15th January 2015
• Notifications of accepted papers: the week of 02nd March 2015
• Conference dates: Saturday and Sunday 30th and 31st May 2015

Please send the abstract and full papers (after your abstracts have been accepted) to:

Mili Kalia – mk7nz@virginia.edu
The conference Administrator and Research Assistant

If you have any query regarding accommodation and travel please contact:

Naheed Khan – n.khan@uel.ac.uk
Senior Administrative Officer

The conference is organised and co-chaired by:

Geeta Patel
Associate Professor
Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures
University of East London

Rula M. Al-Abdulrazak
Senior Lecturer
Branding, Nation Branding and Global Marketing
University of East London
Email: rula@uel.ac.uk

Paper Format Guidelines:

Please prepare your manuscript based on the Society & Business Review guidelines which you can access via this link:

Selected Bibliography:

Abbas, J.A. (2011) "Islamic Ethics and Marketing", in Handbook of Islamic Marketing, edited by Sand?kc?, G. and Rice, G., UK: Edward Elgar.

Al Abdulrazak, R.M. and Chong, D. (2011) "Cultural Diplomacy and the United Arab Emirates: the emergence of a sovereign wealth fund nation on the international art world stage", pp. 439-464 in Handbook of Islamic Marketing, edited by Sand?kc?, G. and Rice, G., UK: Edward Elgar.

Bourdieu, P. (1996), "The Forms of Capital", pp. 241-258 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by J. Richardson. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Cook, K. S. (2001), Trust in Society, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Gambetta, D. (1988), Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations, New York: Basil Blackwell.

Hardin, R. (2006), Trust, Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Ho, E. (2006), The graves of Tarim: Genealogy and mobility across the Indian Ocean, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Kramer, R. M. and Tyler, T. R. (1995), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of theory and research, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Maurer, B. (2006), Pious Property: Islamic mortgages in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, Project MUSE. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. <>.

Patel, G. (2007), "Imagining risk, care and security: Insurance and fantasy." Anthropological Theory, Vol. 7, pp. 99-118.

Sztompka, P. (2003), Trust: A sociological theory. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tilly, C. (2005), Trust and Rule, Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.

---