The Islamic Financial System:
While elimination of "Riba" or interest in all its forms is an important feature of the Islamic financial system, Islamic banking is much more. At the heart of Islam is a sense of cooperation,
to help one another according to principles of goodness and piety (but not to cooperate in evil or malice). In essence, it aims to eliminate exploitation and to establish a just society by
the application of the Shari'ah or Islamic rulings to the operations of banks and other financial institutions. To ensure compliance to the Shari'ah, Islamic banks use the services of religious boards comprised of Shari'ah scholars.
Islamic finance may be viewed as a form of ethical investing, or ethical lending, except that no loans are possible unless they are interest-free. Among the ethical restrictions is the prohibition on alcohol and gambling and the
consumption of pork. Islamic funds would never knowingly invest in companies involved in gambling, alcoholic beverages, or porcine food products
Its practitioners and clients need not be Muslim, but they must accept the ethical restrictions underscored by Islamic values.
The Concepts:
Islamic economic principles offers a balance between extreme capitalism and communism. It offers the individual the
freedom to produce and create wealth, while surrounding the individual with an environment controlled, not by human rulers,
but by Divine Guidance, which sets moral rules and norms of behaviour that must require the utmost sincerity of intention.
When these rules and norms are internalised and acted upon by people, peace and prosperity result for the wider society.
The Qur'an (2:30) says that man was created as the representative of God on earth. This concept has a considerable effect on Islamic business, since the lack of a sense of
absolute ownership promotes a sense working for society, especially the needy.
This is not some philosophical concept, removed from the daily life of the society. It manifests itself in all the different aspects of lives. What makes the trader, banker,
agriculturist or research and development scientist perform his job to the best of his ability? In capitalist economies, it is the notion of competition. This involves the necessity
to constantly produce more new things for profit to keep up with others and this makes for wastage and often generates unbridled greed. But in an economy based on Islamic principles,
the idea of man representing God on earth gives businessmen a feeling of co-operating with others for the good of society as a whole, including himself. Thus Quranic guidance enables man
to conserve and use prudently all the resources of the earth that God has given mankind.