The Minister of Awqaf Dr. Mokhtar Gomaa, Alexandria University President Dr. Essam El-Kordy and Secretary General of the League of Islamic Universities Dr. Gaafar Abdel Salam inaugurated the International Scientific Conference on the Role of Islamic Economics and Finance in Development. The conference was opened on Wednesday 25/4/2018 and organized by AU in cooperation with the League of Islamic Universities. The conference was held under auspices of the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the President of the League Dr. Abdullah Al Turki.

The conference activities continued for three days 25-27 April 2018, with the participation of Dr. Sayed Al-Saifi; Dean of the Faculty of Commerce in addition to the presidents and vice presidents of universities, deans, faculty members guests from Islamic countries. The attendants discussed 25 researches from universities around the world to shed light on the tools of the Islamic economy and finance and its role in achieving suitable level of living for all society members and achieving the comprehensive economic development of Islamic countries.

In his speech, Dr. Mokhtar Gomaa praised the conference goal to find practical solutions to our contemporary issues. He stressed the necessity of activating the role of the League of Islamic Universities to confront extremism and radicalism and renew religious discourse through new reading and the realization of reason in our contemporary issues. The minister suggested reconsidering the current name of the League to become the League of Universities and Institutions of Islamic Countries and setting new criteria for accepting universities.

In his speech, Dr. Kordi pointed to the importance of the conference, which comes to express the world need to activate the role of Islamic economy and finance. He described the conference as a scientific event that brings together research and scientific opinions of researchers and professors from Arab and Islamic universities specialized in the fields of Islamic economics and finance. He also stressed the importance of other topics such as the Islamic Awqaf and its role in sustainable human development and supporting small projects to overcome poverty and unemployment and other topics that make this international conference an important addition to the scientific role of the League of Islamic Universities.

Dr. Sayed Al-Saifi; Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Conference Rapporteur pointed out the policy of financial inclusion that the state is seeking to undertake that requires total financial and economic reforms through the Islamic banking base as the Islamic finance contributes to raising spending and diversifying sources of government revenues. He added that the conference comes in line with the vision of the Egyptian government in 2030. Dr. Al-Saifi thanked Alexandria University Council chaired by Dr. Essam El-Kurdi for adopting the faculty proposal to establish an Islamic Finance Center like the existing centers around the world.

In his speech, Dr. Rashed El-Alewy from Qassim University talked about the importance of the conference to activate the role of the Islamic economy and finance to find funding formulas compatible with the Islamic concept to solve the economic problems.

Dr. Gaafar Abdel Salam; the Secretary General of the League of Islamic Universities explained that the Islamic economy is a refuge for many economic problems as the conference discussed various topics in this regards.