Islamic Banking and Finance: Future of the Financial World Order

Future belongs to Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF), if one is ready to take a cue from the subprime crisis, Lehman brothers and many other giants vanishing from the financial landscape, global economic melt-down, impending double-dip recession, trillions of dollars belonging to 99% common men pumped (in the name of bailouts) by governments into the coffers of behemoth corporations (1%), and subsequent Occupy Wall Street movement. The question is, does IBF provide a better solution? IBF has already proven to be a formidable claimant to be the future of banking and finance, with 400% growth booked during last 7 years, amid severest of recessionary pressures. IBF promises to internalize ethics into business, remove the gamble of greed leading to ever-rising debt burden, and gift the inhabitants of this earth a financial world order founded on real assets and rock-solid humanitarian values of fairness & distributive justice. By replacing interest with shared risk & profit, delivering real output, not worthless paper, IBF nurtures a system that delivers public good, not ravenous self-indulgence. Are they keeping the promises? Is IBF ephemeral? How can it become sustainable? Read on ...