During his 22-year rule, Turkey’s populist leader Erdoğan not only ensured his control of mainstream media ownership, but he also aligned the language and style of these media with his own populist politics. This investigation presents a unique perspective by highlighting the AKP’s establishment of a network of loyal media outlets and business individuals through crony capitalism while also demonstrating that the party garnered loyalty from religious foundations, and the urban poor due to the aid and financial support provided by AKP municipalities. The primary objective of this research is to offer a distinct scholarly contribution by analyzing the influence of crony capitalism and welfare policies within the context of populist politics. This study employed a methodology centered around network graphs designed to reveal connections between the AKP, various media outlets, and associations and foundations, thereby highlighting the AKP’s association with key actors involved in the establishment of a neoliberal-conservative hegemony.

Crowd humanitarian fund, otherwise termed as mutual fund, has overwhelmingly been discussed by many scholars and researchers in western countries. There is obscurity in existing literature in Islamic countries with respect to the interconnectedness between various Islamic financial concepts within the Islamic legal framework and the conceptualization of crowd humanitarian funds. The primary objective of this paper is to address this obscurity by investigating the perspectives of middle- and high-skilled workers among members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) with respect to the crowd humanitarian fund. Hence, the central research question (CRQ) was formulated as follows: How do the middle and high-skilled workers perceive the generation of crowd-humanitarian funds for the purpose of helping the less privileged citizens in Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries? The qualitative method was used as the methodology of the study. In order to collect data for the study, an open-ended interview was employed, and a total of 22 participants were interviewed. Three major themes were generated from the interview, namely: An overview of crowd humanitarian funds, categories of less privileged people in OIC countries, and the use of humanitarian funds for poverty reduction. The findings indicated that the traditional method of collecting funds from crowds is to assist with any humanitarian issue is still applicable in many Muslim countries. In addition, the unity in contributing to the humanitarian fund from the crowd, that is, common practice in Muslims’ culture is what Western society terms as crowdfunding. It is further revealed that there are different categories of people, such as the poor, the needy, and people with low incomes, who can benefit from crowdfunding, especially by using it for investment purposes. In addition, crowdfunding is considered an essential monetary relief to less fortunate individuals or communities in order to have a sustainable life. It can also be used for provision of social amenities such as food, shelters, clothes, hospitals, schools, and job opportunities.

Modernizing the Internet of Things in Islamic boarding schools is essential to eliminate backwardness and skills gaps. Santri must have cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and creative intelligence to be ready to enter the industrial and business world. The students' need for information transparency can be resolved using technology. This is because the empowerment of the Internet of Things has become a separate part of Islamic boarding school activities with students who can connect in real-time. This research aims to analyze current conditions and stakeholder involvement regarding the application of the Internet of Things in innovative Islamic boarding school services in the era of disruption. The Descriptive Method and Individual Interest Matrix Analysis were used by involving 130 respondents from the internal environment of the Daarul Rahman Islamic boarding school and completing the questionnaire through FGD (Focus Group Discussion) with the leaders of the Daarul Rahman Islamic boarding school. The results show that the current condition of Islamic boarding schools is that most need to learn or understand IoT, even though they are enthusiastic about learning new things and flexible in accepting change. The challenges required in implementing IoT are financial investment, increasing human resources through training, and synergy between Islamic boarding school policy makers. Mutually supportive and solid conditions are required between foundations, school principals, and school committees to implement IoT at Daarul Rahman Islamic Boarding School. Collaboration with various parties is needed because the implementation of IoT cannot be done alone by Islamic boarding schools but with the support of various related parties.

Despite the apparent agreement today on the concept of sustainability, the means to achieve it holistically are still controversial. “Just sustainability” concept has recently gained traction, casting doubt on whether sustainability can be attained under capitalism. On the social level, many recent urban studies have been concerned with the concept of social justice and the distribution of resources and wealth as a means to achieving socially equitable sustainability. In this regard, a few questions are brought up: can social sustainability be achieved under capitalism? Are Islamic built environments a viable alternative? Many contemporary studies have described Islamic built environments as sustainable and strived for defining their sustainability criteria. However, they mostly focused on the built environment’s physical environmental aspects without relating them to the socio-economic spheres. Using the concepts of power and rights as key analytical tools, the paper examines a few capitalist utopian reform approaches and compares them in terms of their ability to achieve just sustainability with Islamic built environments. Several examples from primary Islamic history books will be used to examine Islamic built environments. It is concluded that Islamic built environments have attained the just sustainability that contemporary reform approaches sought to accomplish.