Banking and Finance Islamic Concept Edited by Mukhtar Zaman. Karachi: International Association of Islamic Banks, 1993, 204 pp.

Abstract

This book features a selection of articles dealing with interest (riba)
and other related issues and is mainly an appraisal of the interest-free
system as an alternative to the western fixed-rate system. Seven essays
deal with the experience of Islamic banking in Pakistan. Ziauddin Ahmed
and Nawazish A. Zaidi highlight some of the concerns associated with
implementing Islamic banking practices. Although these cancems ate
quite real, the appmh is more anecQtal than empirical. nK essays of
Ghulam Khan, D. M. Qureshi, and Tariq Hassan, as well as the State
Bank of Pakistan's article on Islamic modes of financing, provide prudent
descriptions of how Islamic financial instnunen ts have been implemented
in Pakistan. They also discuss various problems, a common one being
that most (if not all) Islamic countries ate developing countries and,
therefore, the transition to Islamic banking is inseparable from the mdimentary
nature of their present banking systems.
Jalees A. Faruqui's article analyzes some of the ideological
diffemces between the Islamic, capitalist, and socialist ecoflofILic systems.
The capitalist system is Qminated by individualism and selfintetest,
whems a staple element of the socialist system is the concept
of class warfare. The Islamic system differs from the other two in one
important way: it gives people individual rights, but in the context of
caring for others. 'This characteristic means that an equitable distribution
of h m e is an inherent, rather than an institutionalized, part of the
system The final article in this section, by Haqqani, makes the point that
a mudarbah certificak is nothing but a share certificate ...