The Centre for Islamic Economics and Finance at Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS), a college of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), member of Qatar Foundation, will host a public lecture titled, ‘Entrepreneurship, Crowdfunding, and Islamic Finance’ at its new
building in Education City today.
The lecture will be delivered by Dr Shehab Marzban, assistant professor in Islamic finance at QFIS and co-founder of Shekra Crowdfunding.
Dr Marzban will draw a distinction between the work of conventional and Islamic banks, and what they can offer to mobilise capital and promote inclusion through small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startup businesses using innovative and desired asset-based and equity-based
financial products.
Additionally, the talk will highlight the use of crowdfunding platforms as a tool to reduce risks in SMEs. Also there will be an emphasis on adapting ways to utilise the Internet and social media to raise financial resources from a large network of people to support initiatives, projects, or specific
startups.
Dr Marzban said, “Options such as venture capital funds, angel investments, and crowdfunding, which all mainly target innovative high growth startups, are linked to the concepts of Musharaka and Mudaraba, and are close to the fundamental principles of Islamic finance through meeting a set of Shari’ah guidelines.”
Dr Syed Nazim Ali, director of the Centre for Islamic Economics and Finance, felt that entrepreneurship has a comprehensive and substantial role in the socioeconomic growth of both developed and developing countries.
“For Islamic finance to be financially inclusive, entrepreneurship with crowdfunding can potentially be a useful tool at its disposal,” he said.