Business And Accounting Ethics In Islam Introduction and review

418 Book Review The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 Business and Accounting Ethics in Islam By Trevor Gambling and Rifaat Ahmed Abdel Karim. Although the authors do not devote a single chapter to the state's economic role in Islam, they discuss this question throughout the book. Finally, Gambling and Abdel Karim state that Islam views accounting solely as a tool to determine how much of one's wealth is subject to zakah. While this idea needs some reconsideration, as there is nothing in Islam which restricts accounting to this sole function, they do draw several interesting conclusions. For example, since determining the amount of zakah has to be done on the basis of net realizable wealth, an Islamic framework cannot accept Western accounting concepts like conservatism, going concern, periodicity, and others. Similarly, the Islamic concept takes care of inflation, thereby voiding the need for a separate accounting to deal with it.