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“Is it Really Islamic?” Evaluating the “Islam” in Islamic Banking in Amman, Jordan

Production, Consumption, Business and the Economy: Structural Ideals and Moral Realities

ISBN: 978-1-78441-056-8, eISBN: 978-1-78441-055-1

Publication date: 16 September 2014

Abstract

Purpose

This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”

Design/methodology/approach

The information is gathered from interviews conducted during over 21 months of ethnographic research and one month in participant observation and research access as an intern at the Middle East Islamic Bank (MEIB) in Amman, Jordan.

Findings

I found three modes for evaluating “Islamicness” when actors decide whether or not to become customers of Islamic banks.

Research implications

These modes demonstrate that Islamic banking is no longer the cultural protectionism of a relatively homogeneous community of Muslims. Rather it is a fraught and tense field for actors’ debates about types of moralities in the markets and modes of moral assessments of “Islamicness.”

Originality/value

The amplification of the individual and individual choice and authority in the moral assessments of Islamic banking may ultimately serve to unseat prior dichotomous theoretical framings of morality’s presence or absence as “Islamic” or “not Islamic” and “good” and “bad.” By unleashing to individuals the construction of morality in the markets, moral rights and wrongs, and moral evaluations, fragmentation of moral consensus in market practices will occur.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

The research on which this paper is based was funded by IIE Fulbright, Philanthropic Educational Opportunities (PEO), and the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan, with the Council for American Overseas Research Centers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in 2010 and at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna, Austria. A heartfelt thank you to two anonymous reviewers for Research in Economic Anthropology for feedback and comments. The author can be reached at sarahatobin@gmail.com.

Citation

Tobin, S.A. (2014), "“Is it Really Islamic?” Evaluating the “Islam” in Islamic Banking in Amman, Jordan", Production, Consumption, Business and the Economy: Structural Ideals and Moral Realities (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 34), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 127-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120140000034004

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited