【Seminar Report】GSIR – Young Scholars Session 6

Guest Lecturer: Nur Izzati Binti Mohamad Khorzilan

Short Bio

Ms. Nur Izzati Binti Mohamad Khorzilan belongs to the Graduate School of Asian and African area studies of Kyoto University. Her presentation was based on her doctoral thesis.

 Session

Ms. Izzati studies Islamic economics focusing on waqf (Islamic finance). She started her presentation by highlighting the differences of Islamic economic views from capitalism and socialism and reasons for revitalization of waqf practices in Malaysia today. In her current research, Ms. Izzati focuses on theory building and also does field visits to Malaysian organizations promoting waqf.


The second part of Ms. Izzati’s presentation was related to her experience as an international student in Kyoto. She sees the benefits of study in Kyoto in moving outside her comfort zone and accessing an academic environment where she could learn “the third point of view”: neither that of Muslim scholars, nor that of Western researchers. She listed her challenges as a doctoral student in Kyoto University: language, scholarship, adapting herself to the research community, cultural adaptation. She reflected on the meaning of the PhD program for her and ways to achieve originality and value added in one’s research. She highlighted the importance of gratitude, acknowledgements and networking with intellectual community to be an engaged scholar. She also shared her approaches to the solitary time and writing discipline for successful completion of thesis.

The participants asked Ms. Izzati numerous questions as for financial inclusion in Malaysian society, correlations between waqf and Islamic microfinance, reasons for revival of the interest in waqf in recent years. They were also sharing their experiences doing research and comparing everyday practices of Kyoto University students and Ritsumeikan students.