DR. HUMAYON DAR
Dr. Humayon Dar is an Islamic economist, transformational thinker, writer, Sharia consultant and Islamic banking specialist, concenrating on how to produce financial solutions that adapt to Sharia Law. With his guidance roles in Islamic banking and finance sector, academia, publishing and advocacy and relationships with the royal and industrial families and Islamic financial foundations all around the world, he is accepted as one of the most effective personalities in Islamic banking and finance sector.
He is not a classically educated scholar, who has endured years of training and studying of Islamic sciences, such as Quranic interpretation, but explains himself as a sharia technician or Islamic economy specialist. He is accepted as one of the most effective advocates of Islamic banking and finance, who directly benefitted from the first generation of Islamic economists. Those who influenced his academic mentation such as M. Umer Chapra, Khurshid Ahmad, Anas Zarka, Nejatullah Siddiqi and Abdul Rahman Yousri.
Mr. Dar was born in Gakkhar Mandi on the Pakistani part of the Punjab province. He finished secondary school at his home town, and he was directed to Lahore, where he attended Government College Lahore (later on it was renamed as University Government College Lahore). He spent two years there before he was admitted to International Islamic University Islamabad in 1986.
He holds a BSc (Hons) and MSc (both are in Islamic Economics) from the International Islamic Unıversity Islamabad (IIU), besides an MPhil and PhD (both are also in Economics) from Cambridge University.
Mr. Dar co-establihed (with Professor John Presley) an MSc program in Islamic economics, banking and finance at Loughborough University. He has assisted the Cass Business School, of London’s City University, in bringing into being and suggesting an Executive MBA in Islamic Finance. He is also a Visiting Professor of Islamic Finance at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and a part-time Professor in Islamic Finance at INCEIF in Malaysia.
In 2005, he joined Dar Al Istithmar, a joint venture between Deutsche Bank, the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies and Russell Wood, which was brought into being to provide guidance on suggesting financial products that comply with Islamic law. Deutsche Bank provided a series of seminars regarding Islamic finance throughout the Middle East in 2005, with Mr. Humayon Dar as one of the lecturers for those seminars. In March 2006, Mr. Dar was titled managing director of Dar Al Istithmar.
In 2007, the team from Dar Al Istithmar was taken up by the “BMB Group”, the “Eastern-focused investment and advisory” group directed by Rayo Withanage, the occuring company was renamed “BMB Islamic”. Mr. Dar was appointed as its CEO. Euromoney awarded the company with “Best Islamic Advisory and Assurance” award, for both 2006 and 2007. (Citation needed In 2008, BMB Islamic was accepted as member of the Bahrain-based association Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions. In March 2011, he founded “Edbiz Consulting Limited”, which has fast appeared as a guiding think tank (policy institute) for the Islamic financial services industry. In September 2012, Mr. Dar successfully launched Edbiz Corporation as a holding company for all the businesses he has improved over the years. Mr. Dar serves as its Chairman.
In addition to his advocacy of Islamic banking and finance, Mr. Dar presents on a number of Sharia Advisory Boards. He has previously presented on Sharia Boards of Allianz Global Investors (Luxembourg), Hong Leong Islamic Bank (Malaysia), Hong Leong Tokio Takaful Marine (Malaysia) and Halal Industries Group (UK). Owing to his Shari’a advisory role with Nasdaq OMX, he was instrumental in developing Nasdaq 100 Sharia and OMX 30 Sharia indexes of which 7 are available in the market. His present-day Sharia advisory involvements include Arabesque Asset Management, Omarco, Commerzbank and Nasdaq OMX.
Mr. Dar’s book on “Sharia and Legal Aspects of Islamic Finance” (co-edited with Umar Moghul) was published in 2009 by Chancellor Publications, London (UK). Mr. Dar is also founding editor of Global Islamic Finance Report, an annual publication reporting on developments in the Islamic financial services industry worldwide. Global Islamic Finance Report 2012, which was published in March 2012, focuses on Islamic philanthropy and social responsibility and was recognised at Global Donor Forum 2012 as the best research publication on this subject. The Crown Prince of the State of Perak (Malaysia), Raja Nazrin Shah, presented the Best Research and Publication in Islamic Philanthropy Award to Professor Humayon Dar on April 28, 2012, at the Global Donor Forum taken place in Kuala Lumpur.
In 2009, he also founded Islamic Finance Access Programme (IFAP), which aims at supplying affordable Islamic financial information to the foundations and individuals looking for to learn more about the trillion- dollar Islamic financial services industry. In 2011, Mr. Dar’s consultancy firm, Edbiz Consulting, started a new three-monthly magazine, ISFIRE (Islamic Finance Review), which specialises in analyses of new tendencies in Islamic banking and finance. In 2011, Mr. Dar also founded Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA). The first awards ceremony took place in December 2011 at Muscat (Oman), where H.E. Tun Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmad Badawi, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, took the top “Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award.” The second awards ceremony took place on November 19, 2012 at Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), where HRH Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah, the Regent of the State of Perak, took the top “Global Leadership in Islamic Finance Award.” The third ceremony took place in Dubai on Novemebr 26, 2013, where HE Shaukat Aziz, a former prime minister of Pakistan took Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award for 2013. In 2012, Mr. Dar founded another scheme, Global Islamic Finance Films (GIFF), which is in the process of manufacturing the first-ever Sharia appropriate commercial movie to be dispensed world-wide.
