Issues in Islamic and Conventional Finance: A Critical Appraisal

Author: Abdul Karim Abdullah, Mohammad Hashim Kamali

Publisher: IAIS

ISBN:

Pages:

Year:

Price: RM48

This book explains how interest-based lending produces a range of important, though rarely highlighted, side effects. They include inefficiency, indebtedness, instability, inflation, unemployment, slow or declining economic growth, and an uneven distribution of wealth. Despite many adverse macroeconomic effects of debt financing, lending at interest occupies a prominent place in conventional banking and finance and, to a lesser extent, in Islamic finance in a replicated form. is should be of concern. What should be of even greater concern, in particular to policymakers in Muslim nations, is that, to the extent that Islamic finance replicates mainstream finance, it also replicates the latter’s harmful effects. The way to address the adverse effects of interest-based financing is to utilise risk sharing on a wider scale than has hitherto been the case.