If youre Muslim and are concerned about financial products that comply with Sharia Law, there are more and more options available to you today. The first Islamic bank in the UK, the Islamic Bank of Britain, opened its headquarters in Birmingham in 2004, offering a range of products and services such as pensions, mortgages and loans.
The main requirement for financial products and services under Sharia Law is that they neither charge interest nor pay it out, as making money from money is considered usury, and that they do not invest in companies that are deemed unethical, such as those connected with alcohol, tobacco, pornography or gambling.
What often happens when providing loans is that the bank will purchase an item for the customer at a set price and rent it or sell it to them, with repayments made in instalments. The bank makes its money by levying a charge on the customers payments.
With investments, Islamic finance works on the basis of sharing the risk as well as the reward. Both the customer and the bank agree on terms for sharing the risk of any investment and split any profits equally between them.
The four main modes of Islamic banking...