Islamic Finance

Gold and money From time immemorial gold was money.  Valuable goods were priced in terms of gold: this product is worth so many ounces of gold.  But assessing the fineness of the metal and weighing it each time a transaction took place was a tedious and wasteful exercise.  This led to the invention of the gold coin.  Mints which produced …

The world’s monopoly currency is still on the slide as the US’s trade partners watch and attempt to navigate a strategy that will safeguard their own economies. The evidence suggests that more and more Central Banks are diversifying their reserves away from the greenback. Perhaps this turn of events will offer a chance for world trade to revert back to …

It is a common practice to equate the English word ‘Interest’ with the ancient Arabic word ‘Riba’. However, this simple correlation disregards the subtle nature of Riba… THE TERMS ‘INTEREST’ AND ‘RIBA’ ARE NOT ENTIRELY SYNONYMOUS The meaning & definition of Interest appropriate for our purposes is the one in common use, which happens to be a “surcharge on the …

Islam has laid down a number of laws governing human conduct to ensure the wellbeing of society. A good part of these rules are of a financial nature, governing financial transactions and prohibiting certain undesirable practices such as usury, hoarding and bribery which militate against economic justice and fairplay. Needless to say, Islam envisages a just economic order where all …