Islamic Banking in Pakistan

Historically, it has been proved that different world economic crises were due to interest-based debt. In this context, Prof Hayman Minsky’s “Financial stability hypothesis” is very popular. Prof Minsky proposed that this vicious cycle is due to the large amount of debt and high rate of interest in any given economy. Recently, these financial crises are known as “Minsky moments”. Feisal Khan has written an interesting review of the process of the Islamisation of the banking sector of Pakistan. Approximately two thirds of the book provide details on its background, events and history, beginning with a review of the importance of religion in Indian nationalism and religious identity, and ending with a comparison between conventional banking and Islamic banking. Most of the discussion is based on the issues related to different political movements which became a strong base for the process of the Islamisation of the whole economic system of Pakistan. Most of the chapters discuss the issues concerned with the psychological and social mind-set of the different segments of society...