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 Umar
Chapra
Research Advisor,
Islamic Research and Training Institute of the
Islamic Development Bank,
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Umar Chapra has been serving as research advisor
at the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI)
of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) since
November 1999. He joined IRTI after retiring as
Senior Economic Advisor to the Saudi Arabian
Monetary Agency (SAMA), where he served for 35
years. He has also taught in the United States
at the universities of Wisconsin and Kentucky
and worked in Pakistan at the Institute of
Development Economics and the Islamic Research
Institute. He received an MBA (M.Com) degree
from the University of Karachi in 1965, and the
Doctor’s degree summa cum laude in Economics in
1961 from the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis. He thus combines an excellent
academic background with vast practical
experience.
He has made seminal contributions to Islamic
Economics and Finance over more than three
decades in the form of books and monographs
(13), papers (78), and book reviews (14). He has
also lectured widely on various aspects of Islam
and Islamic Economics and Finance at a number of
institutions in different countries, including
the Harvard Law School, the London School of
Economics, the Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies, the Universidad Autonoma (Madrid),
Monash University, Prato (Italy), and
Arab-Italian Chamber of Commerce (Rome). He is a
member of the Technical Committee of the Islamic
Financial Services Board.
Umar Chapra has received a number of awards,
including the Islamic Development Bank’s Award
for Islamic Economics, and the prestigious King
Faisal International Award for Islamic Studies
(both in 1989) and the Institute of Overseas
Pakistanis’ Award for services to Islam in 1995.
Abstract
Ibn Khaldun's Theory of Development and The
Present Day Muslim World
This paper presents an attempt to analyze the
root cause of the present-day socioeconomic and
political ills of the Muslim world. Ibn
Khaldun’s multidisciplinary and dynamic theory
of development has been used for this purpose.
The first part of the paper briefly presents Ibn
Khaldun’s theory, which postulates that the
development or decline of an economy or society
does not depend on any one factor, but rather on
the interaction of moral, social, economic,
political and historical factors over a long
period of time. One of these factors acts as the
trigger mechanism and, if the others respond in
the same direction, development or decline gains
momentum through chain reaction until it becomes
difficult to distinguish the cause from the
effect. The second part of the paper applies
this theory to Muslim countries to determine the
root cause of their problems as well as an
effective strategy that would help cure their
ills.
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