The Role of Money in Capitalistic and Islamic Economic Systems: A Comparative Study

Money has a great role to play in the economic system. It is a backbone of all commercial and financial transactions. Its role is well defined and established since ages; the fundamental role as a medium of exchange and standard of values. Furthermore, if the functional role of money is positive and productive, it leads to the economic growth and expansion of economic activities. Likewise, the injudicious role of money created several economic fluctuations and frequent financial distortions in the economic history. The article suggests that the injudicious role of money created economic disorder and caused financial crisis in the global economy. The research paper attempts to explore the role of money from Islamic and Capitalistic perspectives. In the capitalistic system, the money is being used as a tradable commodity in the banking and financial sector. The Islamic perspective is based on the teachings of Quran and Sunnah, and jurisdictions of Muslim scholars, in this context, money is only a means of exchange and measure of value. The qualitative research approach has been applied to the discussion and based on the literature review and available data, it is recommended that there is a dire need to review the role of money. The role of money as a tradable commodity caused distortions in the existing system.  It is recommended that the banking business needs to be operated on profit and loss sharing rather than the trading of money as a commodity.  

Challenges and Possibilities of Pdts’ Diverse Roles and Responsibilities

The Master in Education (M.Ed.) is a core programme of the AKU-IED. Its purpose is to prepare Professional Development Teachers (PDTs) who are “exemplary teachers”, “researchers” and “teacher educators” and whose primary role is that of working as change agents in their schools on their return from AKU-IED. They are at the forefront of educational reform as they are constantly “rocking the boat” and “breaking the mould” during their attempts to try new things, take risks, encourage innovations and modify instructional practices (Stringfield, 1994, p.157). In this role, PDTs encounter the challenges and possibilities of their role in their respective contexts and face successes and failures, hopes and disappointments. I was interested in this topic because of my professional background of working as a teacher educator, and my exposure to the M.Ed. programme at the IED in different modules. Working with PDTs in their settings persuaded me to conduct the study on this topic. The ultimate purpose of this study was to explore how PDTs resolve challenges while performing their diverse roles and responsibilities in their contexts. This study was conducted in six of IED's cooperating schools from which the sample of the six M.Ed. graduates in three different systems i.e., government, private and AKES in Karachi, were involved. The fieldwork lasted for five weeks in which I applied the qualitative research paradigm and used a survey and semi-structured interviews to collect data I also maintained field notes and memos. This study suggests that PDTs' role performance is affected by some factors like role ambiguity or overload, teacher resistance, dilemmas of teacher education, limitation in conducting research, etc. The study has revealed that the PDTs have significantly contributed to developing teachers professionally in their schools with the eventual impact on whole school improvement. Finally, this study presents a few recommendations and implications for IED's future programmes, school administration and the PDTs as well.