Investing In Islamic Funds: A Practitioner's Perspective

Foreword

Larry Zimpleman

It has been my pleasure to know and work with Noripah Kamso for about 10 years now. I was pleased to hear that Noripah was writing a book on Islamic asset management and felt very honored when she asked if I might write a foreword for her book. Noripah always dives completely into her subject with a genuine enthusiasm. And this book reflects the good work that she has done the past few years in helping to pioneer the growing field of Islamic asset management.

Noripah makes a compelling analytical case for why Islamic investing is something that all investors should consider; it offers equity returns that have outperformed conventional equity returns in recent years and with less volatility. In the case of Sukuk (fixed income), it offers an interesting alternative to traditional fixed income. So, the case for Islamic investing encompasses much more than simply wanting to reflect a faith-based or a socially responsible method for investing.

Given my role as a CEO of a U.S. financial services company (Principal Financial Group), I’ll leave it to the readers to judge the credibility of Noripah’s analytical arguments for why Islamic investing makes sense (although the data seems hard to ignore). My comments offer some observations on the overall development of Islamic finance, how Islamic asset management fits into that development, and thus why any investor (retail or institutional) will want to consider this as an additional option for investing alongside ...