Reforming Islamic finance : Mainstreaming underserved segment and the Third sector

Abstract EN

The paper of Rusni Hassan (2020) has raised fundamental issues on why and how reforming Islamic finance has become inevitable.

Among the issues of interest raised are the underserved segment and the third sector, which are cer-tainly germane to the reform agenda and process of Islamic finance in line with the maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah.

Being some of the major areas of emphasis in the paper, it has become very necessary in order to achieve the envisaged “shared prosperity” of humanity, especially in the Muslim world, which harbors the majority of the pov-erty-stricken citizens of the world, estimated at around 700 million people – who are living on less than US $2 a day.

Hence, this paper posits that mainstreaming the underserved segment and the third sector shall bring about the realization of shared prosperity and sustainability of Islamic finance in the long-run, if given the desired priority and attention.

Therefore, Islamic finance has the potential of playing a sig-nificant role in achieving the twin development objectives of ending global ex-treme poverty by 2030 and shared prosperity by raising the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of populations.

In this regard, it is imperative for the practitioners and scholars of Islamic finance to come together to ensure the integration of the under-served segment, and the third sector in particular, in order to make Islamic finance contribute to the emergence of a shared prosperity society.