Islamic Finance For Dummies

Chapter 1

Easing into Islamic Finance

In This Chapter

Examining the core ideas of the Islamic finance industry

Getting to know industry products and institutions

Recognizing current and potential demand for Islamic financial products

Islamic finance has become an especially hot topic since 2007, when the global financial crises started doing serious damage. Nearly everyone felt the pinch of these crises. Now, academics, businesspeople, politicians, and religious leaders — in Muslim and non-Muslim nations, in the East, Middle East, and West — are talking about the significance of the Islamic finance industry. In part, that’s because the Islamic system has survived these crises with less stress and better performance than many nations’ conventional industries. People are curious to find out why that’s the case and how Islamic finance differs from its conventional counterpart.

In this chapter, I offer a broad overview of the Islamic finance industry to help you get a handle on the concepts behind it, the principles that define it, the products that support it, the people who participate in it, and more. I then touch on the industry’s current level of demand and project how much (and ...