Adeel Malik

Dr Adeel Malik

Small Group Project 2025-26

Water Justice in Muslim Societies: A Scoping Study of Three River Basins

This project investigates the intersection of water justice, climate change, and socio-cultural dynamics in major river basins spanning predominantly Muslim regions, including the Nile, Indus, and Mesopotamia. These basins, among the world’s most water-stressed, exemplify deep inequalities driven by historical trajectories, uneven development, climate-induced disruptions. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the project integrates institutional economics, environmental history, socio-ecological analysis, and hydrological modelling to explore water-related inequalities and their broader implications for justice and sustainability. The project addresses key questions, including the lessons from ancient hydraulic societies, the role of Islamic perspectives on water ethics and conflict resolution, and the impact of past and emerging technologies on equity and resource management. Cross-cutting themes include Islamic ethics in water conservation, the legacy of colonial irrigation systems, and the sacred and symbolic geographies of water in Muslim contexts.

More information

Areas of interest

Macroeconomics Development Economics Political Economy Economic History Islam Middle East Pakistan

Cohort

FG11

Biography

Adeel Malik is a development macroeconomist with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation. His research engages with questions of long-run development, political economy and economic history, with a special focus on Muslim societies. His work combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. Apart from engaging with cross-country empirics on development, he is trying to develop a broader research lens on the political economy of the Middle East. His most recent contribution to the field was an article on 'The Economics of the Arab Spring', which received the Best Paper Award. It has now been translated into Arabic and several other languages, and formed the basis for a dedicated story in The Economist magazine. Another emerging area of interest is the interplay between religion, land and politics in Pakistan, which he is exploring as part of an IFPRI-funded project on structural constraints to public goods provision in Punjab.

He also holds the Globe Fellowship in the Economies of Muslim Societies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and is a Research Associate of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource-Rich Economies, both based at the Department of Economics. He co-directs the ERF Project on the Political Economy of Private Sector Dynamism in the Middle East, and serves as an associate editor of the Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Middle East Economics and Finance).

Biographical details correct as of 26.06.25