It’s rather nonsense to praise the so-called “ethics” of Islamic finances. And if Islamic banks resisted better to the 2008 crisis, it’s because they accumulate huge money supplies that are not invested because of the lack of projects in adequacy with their Islamic principles, preventing from developing a country.
The Turkish economist Timur Kuran published the very interesting and complete book [i]Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism[/] at Princeton University Press on the topic. He explains well it’s just scam, smoke and mirrors as well as hypocrisy.
He, like others (including Muslims, as I showed in the OP), undermines the main arguments for Islamic finances, which are:
- The end of interest on money -> He says, concerning Islamic finance, on p. xvi, that “
nowhere has interest been purged from economic transactions”. The payments of interests are just disguised under the names of
ijara, mudaraba, Murabaha, or
musharaka.
- More economic justice and equality – He says, p. 26, that it’s completely false and "does not necessarily transfer resources to the poor; it may transfer resources away from them." He says it doesn’t help the poor but serves as
"a convenient pretext for advancing broad Islamic objectives and for lining the pockets of religious officials."
- More ethics -> He says, on p. 7, it’s false, since "the renewed emphasis on economic morality has had no appreciable effect on economic behavior.", as "certain elements of the Islamic economic agenda conflict with human nature." (p. 34).
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