Mohammed Obaidullah

Background

About Mohammed Obaidullah

Dr. Mohammed Obaidullah is the Founder President of Pt IBF Net Indonesia and IBF Digilabs Singapore. IBF Net, which expands to Islamic Business and Finance Network, is the maiden online Islamic Business and Finance (IBF) community, created in by Dr. Obaidullah. In 2007, IBF Net won the Global Excellence in Islamic Finance Award at the prestigious International Islamic Finance Forum (IIFF) held in the UAE. More recently, it received the Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) twice: the GIFA Championship Award (Islamic Digital Solutions) in 2022 and the GIFA Best Emerging Islamic Fintech Platform in 2021 for various initiatives including the Netversity International. For his contribution to education and research in the global zakat sector, he was recently conferred the Distinguished International Figure of Zakat 2025 award by the National Board of Zakat (BAZNAS), Indonesia. Among other things, Dr. Obaidullah has served the Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) as Lead Research Economist for over a decade and half. He has also held various academic positions with the King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, the International Islamic University Malaysia and the Xavier University India including the prestigious 2nd Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali Berdaftar Chair Professorship in Islamic Finance at the Islamic Sciences University of Malaysia. With over 3,400 citations, an h-index of 26, and an i10-index of 44, he is the author of 15 books and 43 research papers and book chapters, including the widely cited book Islamic Financial Services (717 citations). Dr. Obaidullah is known for leading the IsDBI project, the Islamic Social Finance Report (ISFR) series. ISFR 2013 was the first-ever publication in the world to use and popularize the term “Islamic social finance,” which covers zakat, awqaf, and not-for-profit sectors of the Islamic economy. He is also a popular blogger in the field and has contributed over 200 blogs covering cutting-edge, breakthrough ideas, concepts, and models in Islamic social finance.