The Director of the Center for Islamic Business and Finance (CIBF), Oktofa Yudha Sudrajad S.T., M.S.M., Ph.D., discussed understanding Islamic finance for millennials at a postgraduate workshop, on Sunday (23/1/2022). Okta is also an assistant professor at the School of Business Management ITB.
Oktofa began his lecture by sharing an overview of the current Islamic finance industry landscape. He identified that 1.526 Islamic finance institutions and 972 Islamic finance education providers are the main factors shaping the Islamic finance industry during 2019. As of 2019, 69% of the global Islamic finance asset is distributed among Islamic banking. Islamic finance assets are expected to grow to 3.600 billion USD by 2024.
“The concept and implementation of Islamic economy evolved from the movement of reviving Al-Qur’an and As-Sunnah as a form of retaliation against the conquest of Western civilization,” explained Oktofa. Secularism believes that life is lived as it is, without the need for religion, God, prophets, or holy books. This is against the teaching of Islam and everything that God has taught Muslims to believe.
Other than politics, law, and culture, Islam encourages Muslims to practice Islamic economic activities within their daily lives. The Islamic economic system is different from Western systems, such as socialism and capitalism. For example, capitalism believes in utilitarian individualism, and socialism believes in dialectical materialism. However, the Islamic economic system believes in individualism as a vicegerent of God on Earth, with the sole objective and realization of performance accountability both in this world and the hereafter.
Oktofa continued with defining Islamic terms, such as falah, prosperity in this world and the hereafter, and sharia, the journey to worship. He ended the workshop by addressing a few questions from the audience.