Rania Kamla

Islam, nature and accounting: Islamic principles and the notion of accounting for the environment

Abstract Islamic principles are suggestive of a variety of implications for governance and accounting. Reflecting upon Islamic principles, we here engage with the notion of accounting for the environment. Drawing from key Islamic texts and relevant prior literature, we elaborate and discuss key Islamic principles of relevance and delineate what they suggest for accounting. Our endeavours here are consistent with a concern to contribute to a critical theoretical project seeking to develop a progressive and emancipatory universalism that is respectful of difference, a project with its accounting implications. In concluding, we point, among other things, to the irony whereby Western transnational corporations have sought to promote their particular brand of corporate social (and environmental) responsibility accounting in Arab countries, variously influenced by Islam, with little to no mention of a notion of accounting for the environment integral to and deeply rooted in Islam.

Critically Appreciating Social Accounting and Reporting in the Arab MiddleEast: A Postcolonial Perspective.

Abstract There has been no comprehensive or detailed study in respect of social accounting and reporting practices in the Arab countries of the Middle East. Indeed, very little is known about accounting practices and accounting regulations in the Arab Middle East (AME hereafter), with most studies available in the English-speaking world being concerned mainly with the larger and more economically significant countries of the AME, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by exploring and bringing insights into social accounting and reporting practices in a selection of AME countries, namely: SaudiArabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The concern of this study is to explore the actuality and potentiality of social accounting manifestations in the AME from a critical and postcolonial perspective. Pursuing a critical and postcolonial perspective that is sensitive to the context of the AME, it is concluded that social accounting manifestations in the AME are largely orientated towards ‘repressive/counter radical’ positions of accounting. The study, in addition, considers the potentiality of more radical positions of social accounting in the AME inspired by a critical approach and the particular history and culture of the AME.

Educating and Training Accountants in Syria in a Transition Context: Perceptions of Accounting Academics and Professional Accountants

This study focuses on accounting education in the Syrian transition context and in the international context of globalization. It offers insights into accounting education and into the interrelationship in this respect between the accountancy profession and academia in this context. We elaborate an historical and contextual analysis of the Syrian context in relation to accounting education. We report on a series of interviews (conducted in 2002 and 2005) of professional accountants and accounting academics in Syria that elaborates the views of these key parties on a number of interrelated matters: the current limitations of tertiary accounting education in Syria; the role of the accountancy profession in providing education and training; and the developing interrelationship between the profession and academia. In concluding, we summarize some key insights and elaborate on the relevance of the study and the future research it suggests.

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

Abstract This article introduces and employs Critical Muslim Intellectuals’ (CMIs) methodological approaches and debates to discuss the issue of bank-interest/ribā in Islam. It builds specifically on Fazlur Rahmans (Pakistan) methodology and debates and counters them with the traditionalists’ approaches to the issue of ribā. The paper highlights the displacement of CMIs’ discourses from mainstream Islamic accounting and banking literature and practices and argues that such displacement is hindering the emergence of genuine, innovative and critical debate on the issue of ribā in particular and Islamic accounting and banking in general. The paper elaborates on the need to incorporate the critical debates and thought of CMIs into the fields of Islamic accounting and banking if these fields wish to contribute to enhancing socio-economic justice and finding an alternative to their conventional, neoliberal counterparts.

Modernity, space-based patriarchy and global capitalism: : implications for Syrian women accountants

This paper contributes to the current literature on gender, modernity, patriarchy and accounting by bringing insights into the experiences of women accountants in Syria: an Arab and predominantly Muslim country. By doing so, this paper enhances understanding of womens interrelationship with accounting beyond the Anglo-American context that currently dominates the research agenda on gender and accounting. Face-to-face interviews with 20 women accountants were carried out in Syria in 2008. This study reveals that in the context of global capitalism and patriarchy, factors of class, alienation, tradition and economic difficulties are contributing to the subordinated role of women in society in general and in the accounting profession in particular. The increased commercialisation of the accounting profession in the Arab world, including Syria, has resulted in socio-economic hierarchies and discriminatory practices, where interviewees spoke of discrimination based on class, sex and on the knowledge held. Further, despite advances to Syrian womens access to the public space, the public space for Syrian women accountants often operates based largely on how men act in this space. Men (and socially/financially advantaged women) often occupy aspects of the public (accounting) space that are perceived to be more significant and better financially rewarded. Thus, the dichotomy of public/private spaces in this study is understood in a broader sense to incorporate the symbolic as well as spatial aspects. This paper concludes that the accounting professions aspirations need to be challenged through critically evaluating and redefining work roles and values to ensure emancipation for women. Furthermore, in the Arab world, dominant patriarchal structures will only be challenged and changed when obstacles preventing women from enjoying their human rights and contributing fully in society are addressed and eliminated.