The Art of RF (Riba-Free) Islamic Banking and Finance: Tools and Techniques for Community-Based Banking, 2nd Edition

About the Book Cover

The book cover was designed by your author to encapsulate, using a metaphor, the banking, financial, and monetary system.

The elephant here represents the whole system: The elephant body reflects the system of banks, financial institutions, regulators, and the economy at large. The head of the elephant represents the Federal Reserve in the United States and the central banks in the country involved. The elephant's head is the most important part of the elephant that directs it and manages its movements. If it is well managed and firmly stirred, it can be driven easily by a small-sized man (or woman). The citizens can sit on top of that elephant and enjoy a pleasant life journey with their homes secured in the background, as seen in the painting. At the bottom of the cover sits a picture containing different currencies of the world, representing the different monetizing fiat currencies used in the world painted in gold as a reference to value, in addition to other precious metals and staple foods as detailed in the book.

RF (Islamic) bankers and the RF scholars in the law (the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Shari'aa law) spent the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century in developing and producing finance models with emphasis on contracts using structuring and financial engineering. That is, we concentrated on a small portion of the body but completely ignored the head—the monetary policies, disciplines, and the fair and ...