Financial Management graduate completes doctoral thesis

Despite the large Muslim population in Germany, Islamic Banking in this country is still at the beginning of its development. In his dissertation, Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq highlights the potential of Shari’ah-compliant Islamic Banking and Finance products.

In the wake of the Financial crisis in 2008, the subject of Islamic banking and finance has increasingly become the focus of the international financial sector, as it has withstood the crisis almost unscathed. Islamic banking had developed dynamically in the decades before, especially in the United Kingdom, but more slowly than the increase in the Muslim population. Although Germany has a significantly larger Muslim population than England, where such instruments are already firmly established, the development of these products is still in its infancy here. The dissertation therefore provides a broad view of the potential of Shari'ah-compliant Islamic Banking and Finance products in Germany. It is the first study of this kind in Germany.

Dr. Ashfaq wrote the cooperative dissertation under the scientific direction of Prof. Dr. Victor J. Randall (mentor) and Prof. Dr. Mouez Khalfaoui (second supervisor) from the Center for Islamic Theology of the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen. Going forward there exist exciting research opportunities related to Islamic Banking and Finance, especially in the areas of FinTechs, Crowdfunding, Blockchain or Socially Responsible Financing.

The author:

Muhammad Ashfaq was born in 1985 in Lahore (Pakistan). He studied in the international degree program in Financial Management (Master of Business Administration, MBA) at Coburg University from 2009 to 2011. There he regularly works as a lecturer. After gaining some years of professional experience in the German industry, Ashfaq obtained his Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. Phil.) degree in October 2017 from Eberhard Karls University Tübingen with magna cum laude.

Bibliographic information:

"Islamic Banking and Finance in Europe: The Case of Germany and the United Kingdom", Muhammad Ashfaq, published in 2017 by Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-631-73321-9