فلسفہ احکام میراث

This research article explores the rationale behind Islamic injunctions regarding inheritance. Unlike other Islamic injunctions, which are briefly enunciated in the Quran but elaborated in Sunnah, inheritance has been detailed in considerable length in the Quranic text itself. This coupled with numerous Prophetic traditions underpins the unique importance Islam accords to the question of inheritance. However, despite its exceptional importance, the subject of Islamic law of inheritance remains mostly a neglected one, even among the students of Islamic seminaries and Ulema. Resultantly, Islam’s brilliant system of inheritance is often not implemented by the adherents of Islam, much to the miseries and hardships of the legal heirs, especially the children and women. Thus these marginalized segments of society are deprived of their rights today just as they were treated before the advent of Islam. This research brings home the fact that the divinely ordained Islamic injunctions of inheritance are based on sound rationale and justification in the best interest of humanity, and that the believers must adhere to these injunctions that are based on three key principles: proximity in relationship, need, and distribution of wealth. The paper explains in great length the types of relatives and legal heirs, the principles of distribution among them, the justification for such shares, and the limits imposed by Quran and Sunnah with regard to the right of the deceased, the heirs, relatives and the state. It also discusses some of the contentious issues in contemporary debate on Islam: an orphan grandson’s title to inheritance, and the philosophy behind 2: 1 inheritance distribution formula between son and daughter. In doing so, the author has not only relied on the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence viz. Quran and Sunnah, in addition to classical and modern Islamic scholarship but also sound argumentation and logical exposition.

The Determinants of Corporate Financial Flexibility: Empirical Evidence from Listed Firms in Pakistanthe Determinants of Corporate Financial Flexibility: Empirical Evidence from Listed Firms in Pakistan

Financial flexibility is an emerging area of study both, in developing as well as developed economies. In previous studies, researchers examined the financial flexibility from various aspects and used its various measures, but there are some important aspects, which have not been examined yet. For example, there is no consensus regarding a well-defined measure of financial flexibility, what are the various internal and external determinants of financial flexibility? How financial flexibility can be affected by variation in corporate governance setting etc. The objectives of this study are to examine the various measures of financial flexibility to identify an appropriate measure, and to identify various factors that determine firms’ financial flexibility. These factors are categorized as firm specific financial, corporate governance characteristics and country specific dynamics. The moderating effects of ownership concentration, managerial ownership, group affiliation, life cycle stage and CEO duality were also studied.Several measures of financial flexibility, such low leverage, spare debt capacity, cash holdings, Altman z score, modified z score and cash flow volatility were used to identify and analyze firm and country specific factors. The examination of this study was carried out by using unbalanced panel data of 193 nonfinancial listed firms in Pakistan Stock Exchange. The panel logistic regression applied for analysis over the period of 1991 to 2014.The data was collected from the annual financial statements of firms, World Bank database and State Bank of Pakistan. This study also differentiated and categorized the different sources and measures of financial flexibility and found that financial flexibility in the form of low leverage, modified Altman z score, Altman z score, are the first, second and third best measures of financial flexibility.Spare debt capacity, cash flow volatility and cash holding are the remaining good measures of financial flexibility respectively. The findings of the study indicate that firm specific financial, corporate governance related non-financial factors and country specific factors affect the corporate financial flexibility.Firms strive to attain and maintain the financial flexibility. Among firm specific factors, size of firm, tangibility, dividend, and age of the firm are the most significant determinants of financial flexibility. Among country specific factors, interest rate, inflation, equity market development and banking sector development are significant determinants of financial flexibility.However, equity market development is more economically and statistically more significant than banking sector development. The moderating effect of ownership concentration, managerial ownership, group affiliation, life cycle stage of firm and CEO duality were also studied. It was found that these variables have direct impact on FF and they moderate the relationship between firm specific factors and financial flexibility.Among these moderator life cycle stages, managerial ownership, and group affiliation are the most significant moderating variables. Overall, this study provides the evidence that FF measured by low leverage, spare debt capacity, cash holdings, Altman z score, modified z score and cash flow volatility may be affected by firm specific and country specific factors.Among all proxies of financial flexibility, low leverage and spare debt capacity were the most important and significant measures and sources of financial flexibility.These results are robust across alternative measures of financial flexibility.