How the booming Islamic finance industry became an ultramodern hybrid of religion and markets In just fifty years, Islamic finance has grown from a tiny experiment operated from a Volkswagen van to a thriving global industry worth more than the entire financial sector of India, South America, or Eastern Europe. You can now shop with an Islamic credit card, invest in Islamic bonds, and buy Islamic derivatives. But how has this spectacular growth been possible, given Islam’s strictures against interest? In The Paradox of Islamic Finance, Ryan Calder examines the Islamic finance boom, arguing that shariah scholars—experts in Islamic law who certify financial products as truly Islamic—have made the industry a profitable, if controversial, hybrid of religion and markets. Critics say Islamic finance merely reproduces conventional interest-based finance, with the shariah scholars’ blessing. From an economic perspective, they are right: the most popular Islamic products act like conventional interest-bearing ones, earning healthy profits for Islamic banks and global financial heavyweights like Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Yet as Calder shows by delving into the shariah scholars’ day-to-day work, what seem like high-tech work-arounds to outsiders carry deep and nuanced meaning to the scholars—and to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who respect their expertise. He argues that Shariah scholars’ conception of Islamic finance is perfectly suited to the age of financialization and the global efflorescence of shariah-minded Islam.

A second edition of Islamic Finance in the Global Economy, substantially revised and updated to take into account the recent developments in the field.

Islamic finance is growing at an astonishing rate and is now a $1200 billion industry, with operations in over 100 countries. This book explains the paradox of a system rooted in the medieval era thriving in the global economy. Coverage is exhaustively comprehensive, defining Islamic finance in its broadest sense to include banks, mutual funds, securities firms and insurance (or takaful) companies. The author places Islamic finance in the context of the global political and economic system and covers a wide variety of issues such as the underlying principles of Islamic finance, the range of Islamic financial products, and country differences. He also discusses a number of economic, political, regulatory and religious concerns and challenges. This second edition has been completely revised and updated to take into account the great changes and developments in the field in recent times. It includes the impact of the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks on the industry, the new forms of interaction with Western financial institutions, the emergence of innovative products such as sukuk, attempts by a broad range of financial centres - including Kuala Lumpur, London, Singapore, Bahrain and Dubai - to become global hubs of Islamic finance, and the repercussions of the 2008 global financial meltdown on Islamic institutions.

Owning a home has always been central to the American dream. For the more than one million Muslims in the United States, this is no exception. However, the Qur'an forbids the payment of interest, which places conventional home financing out of reach for observant Muslims. To meet the growing Muslim demand for home purchases, a market for home financing that would be halal, or permissible under Islamic law, has emerged. In Pious Property, anthropologist William Maurer profiles the emergence of this new religiously based financial service and explores the ways it reflects the influence of Muslim practices on American economic life and vice versa. Pious Property charts the development of Islamic mortgages in America, starting with Islamic interpretations of the prohibition against riba—literally translated as "increase" but interpreted as "usury" or "interest." Maurer then explores the different practices that have emerged as permissible options for Islamic homebuyers—such as lease-to-own arrangements, profit-loss sharing, and cost-plus contracts—and explains how they have gained acceptance in the Islamic community by relying on payment schemes that avoid standard interest rate payments. Using interviews with Muslim homebuyers and financiers, and in-depth analysis of two companies that provide mortgage alternatives to Muslims, Maurer discovers an interesting paradox: progressive Muslims tend to use financial contracts that seemingly comply better with the prohibition against interest, while traditional Muslims seem more inclined to take on financing very similar to interest-based mortgages. Maurer finds that Muslims make their decisions about using Islamic mortgage alternatives based not only on the views of religious scholars, but also on their conceptions of how business is supposed to be conducted in America. While one form of Islamic financing is seemingly more congruent with the prohibition against riba, the other exhibits more of the qualities of American mortgages—anonymity and standardized forms. The appearance that an Islamic financing instrument is legal and professional leaves many Muslim homebuyers with the impression that it is halal, revealing the influence of American capitalism on Muslim Americans' understanding of their religious rules. The market for halal financial products exists at the intersection of American and Islamic culture and is emblematic of the way that, for centuries, America's newcomers have adapted to and changed the fabric of American life. In Pious Property, William Maurer explores this rapidly growing economic phenomenon with historical perspective and scholarly insight.

How the booming Islamic finance industry became an ultramodern hybrid of religion and markets In just fifty years, Islamic finance has grown from a tiny experiment operated from a Volkswagen van to a thriving global industry worth more than the entire financial sector of India, South America, or Eastern Europe. You can now shop with an Islamic credit card, invest in Islamic bonds, and buy Islamic derivatives. But how has this spectacular growth been possible, given Islam’s strictures against interest? In The Paradox of Islamic Finance, Ryan Calder examines the Islamic finance boom, arguing that shariah scholars—experts in Islamic law who certify financial products as truly Islamic—have made the industry a profitable, if controversial, hybrid of religion and markets. Critics say Islamic finance merely reproduces conventional interest-based finance, with the shariah scholars’ blessing. From an economic perspective, they are right: the most popular Islamic products act like conventional interest-bearing ones, earning healthy profits for Islamic banks and global financial heavyweights like Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Yet as Calder shows by delving into the shariah scholars’ day-to-day work, what seem like high-tech work-arounds to outsiders carry deep and nuanced meaning to the scholars—and to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who respect their expertise. He argues that shariah scholars’ conception of Islamic finance is perfectly suited to the age of financialization and the global efflorescence of shariah-minded Islam.

Islamic finance has grown at an annual rate that exceeds twenty percent a year and is now a two hundred billion dollar industry operating in more than seventy countries. A best-selling text that introduces the role of Islamic finance in the global economy, this book unravels the paradox of a thriving system rooted in medieval practice.

Islamic finance’s phenomenal growth owes to the Shariah compliant nature of its financial instruments. Shariah forbids the charging of interest (Riba) and instead promulgates risk-sharing and trade-based modes of financing. The Islamic financial industry has been subject to both critique and admiration. Critics argue that Islamic instruments (bearing debt-based structures) differ from their conventional counterparts only in legal lexicon and not in economic impact. The admirers argue that such instruments, irrespective of wider economic implications, rigorously comply with ‘juristically sound’ Islamic principles. This book aims to reconcile the above dispute. It argues that the financial impact of instruments is a consequence of the way they are priced and structured. The similarity in pricing and structures is an outcome not of the underlying Islamic financial modes but of the competitive environment in which Islamic instruments compete. Even risk-sharing and trade-based Islamic structures, if implemented in such an environment, would have a financial impact similar to that of conventional instruments. This book has a wider appeal for both academic and non-academic audiences. It can complement undergraduate and graduate courses as an additional reading on the intricacies of Islamic financial instruments and markets. For PhD students, it would help identify future research areas. To non-academics, it offers a deeper understanding regarding the working of the Islamic finance industry.