Palace of Justice, Putrajaya, Malaysia

This academic year Professor Ahmad Hidayat Buang from the Academy of Islamic Studies at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur is a visiting scholar at UNC. His first public talk”What Is a Fatwa? Islamic Finance in the Malaysian Legal System” will take place on September 7th at 5:30 pm in Room 1005 of the FedEx Global Education Center.

The abstract of the talk is as follows: The current practice of Islamic finance in Malaysia has introduced innovative techniques to satisfy the demands of modern business and the economic development of Muslims. In contrast to countries of the Middle East, however, Malaysia does not have any specific legislation pertaining to Islamic contracts, so a key legal instrument has been judicial decrees (fatwas) issued by the National Shariah Advisory Council of the Central Bank. This system accommodates the existing legal and financial framework of the country, which is non-religious as far as the financial and banking systems are concerned. This presentation attempts to show the development, interaction and responses between fatwa, legislation and courts of law regarding Islamic finance and banking in Malaysia.