Explore the vast range of titles available.

Status and trends of research in the field of Islamic economics (IE) is important to all who care for its progress. The editorial board (EB) of the Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics (JKAU:IE) posed questions in this regard and invited specialists for answers. The questions focused on IE research methodology, diversity, quality, and areas that still have to be covered. This paper focuses mainly on three of the EB questions, besides commenting on Asad Zaman's leading article (Zaman, 2021) presented in response to the invitation of the EB of JKAU:IE. The first among the selected questions is about the main attributes of good quality research in economics and IE in particular. Answering this question requires displaying criteria employed in judging quality standards in economics and seeing how far these can be applied in IE, which is of a particular religious and philosophical nature. The second question is about the availability of well-defined metrics that can provide an objective assessment of the research quality in economics, IE included. Otherwise, assessment of quality would depend on subjective matters such as experience and value judgments. And how far each approach would serve healthy progress of research in IE? This question is obviously inseparable from the first one. Its answer begs a question about IE: could it be classified within sciences that accept welldefined metric assessment or not? IE is a social science that is intensively value-loaded, and evaluation of research quality may need qualitative evaluation in the first place. As for the third question, it revolves around methodology, whether the new trend of quantitative analysis is more suitable for IE research or the descriptive or qualitative analysis? The answer needs to address the development of research methodology in economics, in general, and IE in particular and the factors that favor or disfavor increasing reliance on the quantitative analysis in comparison to the traditional qualitative method.

This paper comments on Asad Zaman's lead paper (Zaman, 2021) in this journal and is divided into three parts. The first part summarizes very briefly my reaction to Zaman's paper, while delving deeper into areas only briefly touched by Zaman, such as the role of physics, and the importance of knowledge. Part two answers this Journal's clarion call to action, by discussing what is at stake, the importance of metrics, and the challenges and opportunities facing Islamic economics. The third part moves us forward using Zaman's endorsement of action-oriented work and actionoriented research as a steppingstone to first recognize, and then overcome the significant obstacles in implementing a viable and reconceptualized economics, one which can adequately provision for all. In this regard, a significant obstacle is juxtaposing concepts as binary opposites, e.g., cooperation versus competition, service versus profit, quantitative versus qualitative. However, these concepts could be better understood as different but having a deeper, more intricate relationship. Viewing ostensible opposites in a non-binary way as complimentary pairs is especially useful in fomenting dialogue and developing empathy (and even a humility) especially with those whom we disagree. And this is especially critical as we move forward in confronting contemporary challenges that human societies face. A lot is at stake, and we have a narrowing window with which to act.

How to make sense of the politics and history of Kashmir since decolonization? Two new important books deal with this question and provide a detailed account of what is/was happening in Kashmir—one of the most densely militarized regions in the world with a long history of a self-determination movement. For many years now, and these two books are part of that conversation, scholars have centered Kashmir in their analysis instead of fixating on the dispute between India and Pakistan or the internationalisation of the conflict. This change has brought new perspectives and conceptual categories to study the region. This is a much-needed corrective especially considering that scholarly work on Kashmir has relied on the ‘nation-state’ framework for too long.