“I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims;

I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but no Islam.”

(Mohammad Abduh)

Our Mission

Our mission is to stimulate peaceful reform in Muslim countries by encouraging effective institutions.

Islamicity Indices substantiate the observation that Western countries better reflect Islamic institutions than do countries that profess Islam and they also provide the compass for renewal and progress in Muslim countries.

Islamicity Indices enable Muslims to focus on the indisputable source of their religion—the Qur’an—and are a continuous performance indicator of their rulers, governments, communities and of themselves. The Indices also provide a simple approach to explain Islam to the non-Muslim world. With a better understanding of Islam in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities, peaceful reform and effective institutions will be more readily achieved in Muslim countries.

Islamicity Foundation

The “Islamicity Foundation” was incorporated as a non-profit 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt corporation in the United States with Hossein Askari, Hossein Mohammadkhan and Fara Abbas as its Directors in 2020. The Foundation has taken ownership of the Islamicity Indices project with the mission of supporting peaceful and positive change in Muslim countries. To this end, the Foundation is developing the organizational structure that is supported by a global community of Muslims who better understand the teachings of the Qur’an and support peaceful reforms and more effective institutions. Such an informed and joined global community of Muslims would be in a stronger position than Muslims in a single country to peacefully encourage rulers to build effective institutions and to initiate much-needed reforms to enhance human and economic development across all Muslim countries.

The Foundation will collaborate with local country partners, representing over half the Muslim World to publicize the program, monitor developments along each dimension of the indices and to issue an annual report on their country’s indices and policies to establish effective institutions. The Foundation will issue annual report delineating areas of progress and shortfall and will oversee the yearly improvement and updating of the Islamicity Indices and adoption of a third-party audit plan for data and calculations. Among other initiatives, the Foundation plans to oversee the further development and expansion of the Islamicity website to a new platform to allow interactive capabilities for a connected global network and hopes to initiate a Fellows Program and a Faculty Exchange Program. To achieve its mission, the Foundation hopes to raise a significant endowment to generate a sufficient income stream. Although the Islamicity Foundation has been organized as a stand-alone entity, in time and if appropriate, it could partner with a world-class university. This would afford the Foundation and its mission more visibility; it would facilitate fundraising activities; and by teaching seminars on Islam and development and on Islamicity Indices, the Foundation could develop a cadre of young collaborators to better accomplish its mission around the world. Please click here for a Program Summary .

About Us

We are five individuals acting in our private capacity. Our founding member is an economist (Hossein Askari), another member is a finance specialist (Hossein Mohammadkhan), a third is an International Affairs specialist (Fara Abbas), a fourth has a PhD in Islamic Finance (Liza Mydin) and a fifth is a web specialist (Mostafa Omidi).

We feel that soon after Prophet Mohammad’s death Islam came under the control of rulers and clerics. This has continued throughout history to the point where today we see clerics, rulers, politicians, terrorists, institutions, organizations and individuals espousing a religion that bears very little resemblance to the teachings of the Qur’an. In most Muslim countries, the people have little say about the governance of their country and they are prohibited from discussing and discovering their religion. Rulers and clerics have placed themselves as the only legitimate interpreters of Islam and routinely dismiss questions from Muslims as ill-informed and not worthy of discussion. Such a disconnect between the teachings of the Qur’an and its practice has emboldened radicals, opportunists and terrorists to fill the void and to preach a version of Islam that has perverted the religion, divided humanity, pitted Muslim against Muslim, Muslims against Christians, Muslims against Jews and is destroying the fellowship of humankind that is at the core of all religions of the Book. We address this disconnect between the teachings of the Qur’an and the practice of Islam in the Muslim World. Our approach is to establish a benchmark (a collection of rules), based on the Qur’an and the life of the Prophet Mohammad, which Muslims can use to assess the governance and policies of their countries to establish effective institutions.