When I first read this article Islamic finance has much to learn from the West, I felt a sense of regret that the author quoted the US as having "more shariah compliant financing" mechanism than practiced by Islamic banks in Islamic countries. I quoted here the basis for his argument - "American venture capital groups annually provide about $25bn in capital financing to entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers with new ideas. As a consequence of the availability of this type of financing the venture capital industry in the US has given birth and nurtured scores of Silicon Valley companies, including modern day icons such as HP, Cisco, Intel, Sun Micro Systems, Apple, Netscape, Ebay, and Google. All were created in the past 30 years or so from ideas grounded in science and technology. Scientists and engineers came up with the ideas, innovations and inventions while the venture capital industry provided the capital on a partnership basis. Millions of new jobs have been created as a result."
I believe the correct phrase would be Islamic finance has to go back to its roots (even the article's author wrote that the west's renaissance partly came as a result of learning from the Islamic world). Islam encourages development and abhors hoarding and idle of wealth, thus, encourages investments. True, the most popular mode of Islamic financing now is murabaha (cost plus), but there are Islamic financial institutions who have made the necessary steps to opt for other Islamic modes of financing e.g. musyarakah, which is a form of partnership (profit and loss sharing).
I would like to reiterate that we (especially the Muslims) must give Islamic finance a chance - major revamps need to be made so as they are able to compete with their conventional counterparts. The hardest part to make this a reality is - to obtain the consensus of all for standardization of shariah rulings.
There are many conventions and/or seminars on Islamic finance taking place every month in all parts of the world - changes can be seen, however, it is not at a rate that we hoped. Every Muslim has a duty to contribute (no matter how small a contribution) to ensure that Islamic finance (or Islam in general) is no longer being ridiculed by others. Islam is our religion and we must stand united to guard it at all cost.
I believe the correct phrase would be Islamic finance has to go back to its roots (even the article's author wrote that the west's renaissance partly came as a result of learning from the Islamic world). Islam encourages development and abhors hoarding and idle of wealth, thus, encourages investments. True, the most popular mode of Islamic financing now is murabaha (cost plus), but there are Islamic financial institutions who have made the necessary steps to opt for other Islamic modes of financing e.g. musyarakah, which is a form of partnership (profit and loss sharing).
I would like to reiterate that we (especially the Muslims) must give Islamic finance a chance - major revamps need to be made so as they are able to compete with their conventional counterparts. The hardest part to make this a reality is - to obtain the consensus of all for standardization of shariah rulings.
There are many conventions and/or seminars on Islamic finance taking place every month in all parts of the world - changes can be seen, however, it is not at a rate that we hoped. Every Muslim has a duty to contribute (no matter how small a contribution) to ensure that Islamic finance (or Islam in general) is no longer being ridiculed by others. Islam is our religion and we must stand united to guard it at all cost.
No comments:
Post a Comment