Over the last two years academic specialization regarding the Middle East has moved from the humanities, which produced Arabists and the much maligned moniker of Orientalist, into the field of Islamic finance. This is not overly surprising given the surge in attention the business world has given the region, the Gulf in particular, awash as it is with oil money and jockeying for position as a global finance and services hub. But as always, it has taken time for educational institutions to catch up on the trend and churn out more than oil economists and Middle East policy wonks.
The English salute
In the UK, the rising global stature of Islamic finance has been boosted through Prime Minister Gordon Brown promoting London as a hub for Islamic finance, with three British Islamic banks established and global players Lloyds TSB and HSBC offering Islamic financial products and services.
Such developments naturally require appropriately trained personnel, and British institutions have started to cater to this growing field, albeit with mixed results. Two specialist Islamic masters programs started at the University of Durham and Loughborough University a few years ago were cancelled because of insufficient demand from the “right kind of student,” a professor was quoted as saying.
Durham is still offering a summer school program and is the world’s largest research center for Islamic finance, but over-specialization was seen as excessive in a market that is still primarily focused on traditional banking. Instead, universities are now offering optional modules in Islamic finance as part of MBAs and Executive MBAs, giving students a strong foundation to analyze and work with Islamic products and services.
Lancaster University Business School, the School of Oriental and African Studies’ (SOAS) Center for Financial and Management Studies, and the Cass Business School (CBS) have all started over the past year to offer optional modules as part of postgraduate training. Only Bangor University, in Wales, is offering a fully-fledged Islamic Banking Masters, slated to start this September. Meanwhile, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants is now offering a certificate in Islamic finance that has been developed by a group of sharia experts.
Doing something different
One of the reasons universities are offering modules in Islamic finance and associated fields is to differentiate themselves from other programs due to “MBA inflation” — too many schools offering MBAs and too many students entering the work market waving a MBA diploma around. Differentiation and specialization are the resultant buzz words, along with the reputation of the school and what it offers.
“Global business schools have to be aware of these issues. I’m pleased we can go so far as having specialist electives in Islamic finance, which is an example of the need to adapt,” said professor Stefan Szymanski, associate dean of MBA programmes at the CBS, part of the City University London.
Last year, CBS, located in the capital’s financial hub, became the first institution to offer an executive MBA with two specialist streams in Islamic finance and energy.
“London is very involved in Islamic finance, and the Central Bank launched an Islamic bond a year ago, so there is a lot of demand for training,” said Szymanski.
The Islamic finance stream offers courses in Islamic banking and finance, Islamic economics, and Islamic law of business transactions.
But with other schools offering similar programs, Cass was prompted to offer the two-year part time EMBA in collaboration with the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC).
“One of the reasons we chose Dubai is the potential for the emirate to be a global hub in the same way London is, and they are doing all they can to make that happen,” Szymanski pointed out. “In many ways Dubai is competing with Hong Kong, London, Mumbai… so to keep skilled people there they also need to deliver a high standard of service.”
The program thus benefits both Dubai and London, which is reflected in the multinational make-up of this year’s intake of students, with 25% Emiratis, while other students are from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, Iran, Europe, the US, India and Pakistan.
With a multinational faculty and student body, Szymanski emphasized how universities are adapting to the realities of globalization, with the school planning to hold a symposium over the next year in Dubai for London-based students to spend a week to find out what it is like to do business in the Gulf. “All students are conscious of the need to do business in other parts of the world — to be global you need to be local, so-called ‘glocalization’,” he said.
And with demand quickly rising for personnel specialized in the labyrinth of Islamic jurisprudence — from the Qur’an to the hadith and sharia law — British institutions are hoping this fledgling academic sector will flourish as rapidly as Islamic finance has around the world.
