Umer Chapra
Muhammad Umer Chapra (born 1 February 1933) is a Pakistani-Saudi economist. he serves as Advisor at the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Prior to this position, he worked at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Riyadh, for nearly 35 years, as Economic Advisor and then Senior Economic Advisor. He has also taught as Assistant and Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin (Platteville), the University of Kentucky (Lexington), as Senior Economist and Associate Editor of the "Pakistan Development Review" at the Pakistan Institute of  Development Economics, and as Reader (Associate Professor) at the Central Institute of Islamic Research (Pakistan). He has lectured widely at a number of universities and professional institutes in different countries around the world, including the Harvard Law School, Loughborough University, UK, the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, the London School of Economics, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, the University of Malaga, Spain, and Kyoto University, Japan. He is on the editorial board of a number of professional journals and has acted as referee for a number of others, including the "Economic Journal" of the Royal Economic Society, UK, the "Journal of  Socio-Economics" and the "Thunderbird International Business Review". Personal life. Chapra was born in Bombay, British India on 1 February 1933 to Abdul Karim Chapra, and grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. He completed undergraduate studies from the University of Sindh in 1950, followed by undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in commerce at the University of Karachi in 1954 and 1956 respectively. He then moved to the United States, where he pursued a PhD in economics and sociology from the University of Minnesota in 1961, and worked as an academic for six years. In 1965, at a time when there was high  demand for skilled Pakistani migrants, he moved to Saudi Arabia after being offered an economic advisory position at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency. He worked under Minister for Finance Sheikh Mohammed Abalkhai during the reign of King Faisal, and played an instrumental role in building Saudi Arabia's banking system, as well as formulating the government's economic and monetary policies over the next several decades. In 1990, he was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in the field of Islamic studies and economics. He was also granted Saudi citizenship in recognition of his services to the country. In 1995 , he was awarded an Institute of Overseas Pakistanis medal by the President of Pakistan, for his contributions in economics. He is married to Khairunnisa Jamal Mundia and they have four children. Awards. Chapra has received a number of awards for his academic contributions, including: Bibliography. Chapra has written extensively on the issues of Islamic economics and finance. In addition to a number of articles published in accredited journals, he has written 11 books, of which the following have been the most notable: