Seyed Mohamed Mohamed Mazahir

The purpose of this study is to assess the level of awareness and understanding of Takaful, an Islamic insurance scheme, as compared to traditional insurance among students of Islamic Studies in Sri Lanka. Despite the growing popularity of Takaful in the country, there is a notable lack of awareness and understanding of this concept among Sri Lankans. By conducting a survey among Sri Lankan students, this research seeks to determine the level of awareness and acceptance of Takaful, while identifying the factors that influence this perception. The research methodology employed was to collect data through questionnaires distributed to customers in Sri Lanka. The findings indicate that although there is a growing demand for Takaful in the country, a significant portion of the population is either unaware of its existence or hesitant to adopt it due to prevailing misconceptions. The study highlights the importance of increasing awareness and understanding of Takaful to encourage greater...

The Qur'anic perspective on human connections in heterogeneous communities is evaluated in this study. It conducts textual analysis as well as historical interpretation of Qur'an verses. The findings illustrate how the Qur'an plays a unique role in improving human interactions in a multicultural society by emphasizing the importance of unity, fostering brotherhood, advocating justice, protecting equality, promoting interfaith dialog and tolerance, and ensuring religious freedom for all religions, cultures, and civilizations. The study concludes by stressing that the Holy Qur'an is a comprehensive guide that promotes peaceful interfaith and multicultural interactions. It can be used as a model for resolving multicultural problems and promoting peace and harmony among people of different faiths and cultures.

Sri Lanka is a pluralistic country. Therefore, it is important to carry out reconciliation among its citizens. The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyat, which is presented by modern Islamic scholars with the help of the sources of Islamic Shari'ah to formulate the life of minority Muslims, contains necessary guidelines for reconciliation among living beings in a pluralistic environment. Hence, the study was conducted with the aim of defining the term and finding the necessary guidelines that would be put forward through this doctrine for racial and religious harmony. Secondary data such as research and magazine articles, information on books, and online materials related to the topic were examined. At the end, the term Fiqh al-Aqalliyat was defined as a set of guidelines for minority Muslims living in a pluralistic society, to approach their problems related with Islamic Jurisprudence in accordance with Islamic Shariah, by considering their circumstances, to live in harmony. It was found that the theory is based on the dual role that all people living in a pluralistic environment are at once members of the society they belong to and citizens of the country they live in; Although each group has its own traditions, it is essential for reconciliation, to be flexible in particular circumstances; And while everyone adheres to their own culture, can move towards next step of reconciliation by ignoring other traditions and avoiding being radical in maintaining individuality. Therefore, the conclusion of the study was that if the guidelines of this doctrine were properly followed all could maintain their individuality and we may create an environment where they accept other ethnic and religious groups and their cultures and live in harmony as citizens of one country.

The contemporary concept of Takāful can be explained as providing financial assistance to the participants as a basis of mutual help, brotherhood and solidarity if the participants face misfortune. Nowadays in Sri Lanka conventional and Islamic Insurance are conceptualized by offering products and services. The aim of this study is to check the Awareness of Islamic and conventional Insurance among Sri Lankan public. Therefore, the respective sample of 226 respondents were participated in this survey. Further, the reliability test of the accumulated data was inspected with Cronbach's Alpha test. For the data collection a set of questionnaires using Google structure and shared through E-Mail and WhatsApp media around Sri Lanka during the period between first week of October and first week of November 2020. Finding of this study indicated that the majority of the customers mentioned that they are using insurance due to they are engaged voluntarily in this (48.7%). It gives a good view of Takaful since they keen interest in Takaful without any compulsion. Although, 35.4% of them engaged with insurance policy by compulsion. And 30.1% of the participants had experience with Islamic insurance for more than 3 years. This ensures that they are satisfied with this insurance strategy. Further, in this study, the researchers worked on measuring the awareness of Islamic Insurance compare to Conventional Insurance among Sri Lankan; but it can be conducted gender wise or religion wise, to improve the awareness of Islamic Insurance among other communities, which can lead to increase the customers of Islamic Insurance organizations.

Counselling is a professional process that provides guidance for human beings to face various psychological problems successfully. Islam provides guidance for all aspects of human life and provides various guidelines for dealing with psychological challenges. Hence, the study was conducted to identify the theory and practical Islamic guidelines on counselling. Based on the earlier literature, the information on counselling in the Islamic basic sources, the al- Qur’an and al-Hadith along with research articles, books, web articles were reviewed, and the results were presented in the descriptive method. The main finding of this study is that Islam has provided practical guidelines for overcoming psychological problems successfully. This article would be helpful for understanding the value and the importance of Islamic counselling.

Learning the Holy Qur’an is obligatory for both Muslim men and women since it is a perfect guide for human life in this world and hereafter. However, it is surprising that the Muslim society is far from the Holy Qur’an due to an increased desire for worldly life. It is possible to identify, especially among university students, that their connection or involvement with the Holy Qur’an is becoming spiritually retrograde. Therefore, the study employed a convergent mixed-method research design to identify the involvement of university students with the Holy Qur’an. A total of 315 university students voluntarily participated in this study by filling self-Administrated questionnaires, conducting unstructured interviews and telephone conversations. Moreover, the secondary data was collected from various sources of information such as books, journal Articles, web-publications. The collected data was analysed by way of descriptive method. findings of the study were presented in the form of ...

Reading makes a man perfect and it is very essential component to University students. Hence, students face various obstacles in developing reading habits. Therefore, with the aim of assessing students’ reading habits and identifying the changes and the factors infl uenced when they pursue education through online learning tools due to corona fears, the study was conducted with second year students of Department of Islamic Studies of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka. For this study, which was carried out using quantitative research methods, a fi lled questionnaire was obtained as primary data from 121 of the 174 students studying in the year through Google Forms, analyzed through MS Excel and the results were described. Secondary data such as research articles, journals, and web articles related to the topic were also used. At the end of the study, it was found that students’ reading habit was healthy, the amount of time they spent on daily reading varied, their reading habits ...

Shari'ah Supervisory Board (SSB) is the salient feature of Shari'ah governance upon which the entire operation of Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) depends for validations. This chapter examines the status of SSB in the context of Shari'ah governance in Sri Lankan IFIs. The position of SSB has been examined in three dimensions, namely appointment, qualifications of SSB members, and the enforcement of their decisions. The qualitative method of research and the gap analysis have been applied to find the gap between the guidelines issued by Accounting and Auditing Organizations (AAOIFI) and Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) and the actual practices of SSB. Some gaps were found in the practice of SSB in the abovementioned three areas though each IFI has setup SSB institutionally at micro level. The recommendations are put forward to enhance the SSB practices in Sri Lankan IFI, which is the significant contribution of this chapter.