Critical Muslim Intellectuals’ discourse and the issue of ‘Interest’ (rib¯a): Implications for Islamic accounting and banking

This article introduces and employs Critical Muslim Intellectuals’ (CMIs) methodologicalapproaches and debates to discuss the issue of bank-interest/riba in Islam. It builds specifi-cally on Fazlur Rahman’s (Pakistan) methodology and debates and counters them with thetraditionalists’ approaches to the issue of riba. The paper highlights the displacement of CMIs’ discourses from mainstream Islamic accounting and banking literature and practicesand argues that such displacement is hindering the emergence of genuine, innovative andcritical debate on the issue of rib¯a in particular and Islamic accounting and banking in gen-eral. The paper elaborates on the need to incorporate the critical debates and thought ofCMIs into the fields of Islamic accounting and banking if these fields wish to contribute toenhancing socio-economic justice and finding an alternative to their conventional, neolib-eral counterparts.