Islamic Finance

The last two decades have seen a plethora of publications on subjects relating to Islamic finance and economics. It all started in the sixties of the last century as an effort to establish, under the influence of the persuasive writings of Syed Abu’l A[la Mawdudi (Pakistan), Sayyid Qutb (Egypt), and Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (Iraq), a separate discipline of ‘Islamic Economics’. Soon it caught the imagination of the intelligentsia and practising bankers of the Muslim world. The oil boom placed huge amounts of surplus funds at the disposal of Muslim businessmen and governments of the Middle East. All these factors combined to set stage for developing Islamic financial institutions where the Muslims could conduct their business according to their faith without losing on the worldly gains of business and investment. This movement led to the evolution and development of hundreds of Islamic financial institutions in more than 75 countries over a short period of 30 years.