Page 151 - IANUS n. 26 - Fideiussioni omnibus e intesa antitrust: interferenze e rimedi
P. 151

IANUS n. 26-2022                       ISSN 1974-9805





                                                                                       1
                 IN THE NAME OF GOD: MANAGING RISK IN ISLAMIC FINANCE

                                           Valentino Cattelan

                                              Lecturer in Law,
                                         Birmingham City University


                  In Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk (1996), Peter L. Bernstein illustra come il saper dominare
               il rischio abbia guidato la moderna società occidentale nel convertire «il futuro da nemico in opportunità», laddove
               il rischio vine quantificato, misurato, e gestito per mitigare i pericoli dell’inatteso, e dove procedure di risk-taking, -
               transfer e pooling sono divenute esse stesse fonti di legittimo profitto. Commentando il lavoro di Bernstein nel
               passaggio dal ‘rischio’ occidentale alla nozione araba di ﻕﺯﺭ  rizq, ‘il sostenimento (divino)’, questo articolo si
               riferisce  all’azzardo  umano,  o  fortuna,  in  arabo  ﺭﻫﺯ zahr,  i  ‘dadi’  delle  future  chances,  attraverso  una

               prospettiva  comparativa  ed  interculturale.  Più  precisamente,  l’articolo  intende  mostrare  come  specifiche
               assunzioni antropologiche conducano ad una teoria ed una pratica alternative della gestione del rischio in un
               mercato la cui peculiarità sta nell’operare non ‘contro’ ma ‘in Nome di Dio’: vale a dire, il mercato della finanza
               islamica.

                  In Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk (1996), Peter L. Bernstein illustrates how the mastery
               of risk has driven modern Western society into converting «the future from an enemy into an opportunity», where
               risk is quantified, measured, and managed to mitigate the perils of the unexpected, and where risk-taking, -
               transfer and -pooling have become per se sources of legitimate profit. Commenting on Bernstein’s work while
               moving from the Western ‘risk’ to the Arabic ﻕﺯﺭ  rizq, ‘(God’s) sustenance’, this article looks at human hazard,
               ﺭﻫﺯ  zahr, the ‘dice’ of future chances, through a comparative and inter-cultural perspective. More precisely, it
               aims  to  show how  specific  anthropological  assumptions result  in  an  alternative  theory and  practice  of risk
               management in a market whose peculiarity is to operate not ‘against’ but ‘in the Name of God’: namely, the
               market of Islamic finance.


               Summary:

               1. Gods, men and the (un)expected: from Bernstein’s risk to the Arabic rizq (ﻕﺯﺭ)
               2. Islamic finance, Muslim anthropology, and legitimate profit: al-kharaj bi-l-daman
               3. Conceiving and managing risk in God’s creation: the logic of Islamic finance
               4. Conclusions: another, remarkable, story of risk?





                    Saggio sottoposto a double-blind peer review.
                  1  This article remained for a long time in the preliminary format of working paper (CATTELAN, In
               the Name of God: managing risk in Islamic finance, in Eabh Working Papers Series, 14-07, 2014; available
               online  at  http://www.eabh.info/publications/eabh-papers).  I  thank  the  editorial  committee  of
               IANUS for the opportunity to give it appropriate collocation as article in a peer-reviewed journal.
                  Transliteration note: please consider that in the transliteration from Arabic into English graphical
               forms have been simplified (e.g. riba instead of ribā; Shari‘ah in the place of šarī‘ah; daman instead of
               ḍamān; haqq in the place of ḥaqq; and so on).
                  Quotations of the Qur’an are taken from YUSUF ALI, An English interpretation of the Holy  Qur’an
               with full Arabic text, Lahore, 1975. The sura is specified in Roman numbers; the ayat in Arab numbers
                            th
               (e.g. Q. IX:51, 51  ayat of the 9  sura).
                                       th
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