Page 155 - IANUS n. 26 - Fideiussioni omnibus e intesa antitrust: interferenze e rimedi
P. 155

IANUS n. 26-2022                       ISSN 1974-9805





               comparative  perspective,  moving  from  the  Western  to  the  Arab  side  of  the
               Mediterranean by looking at the hazard, ﺮﻫﺯ zahr, the ‘dice’ of future chances,
               through an inter-cultural approach. In other terms, does a different anthropology
               of  risk  characterize  Islam  in  comparison  to  the  West?  Should  we  tell,  in  this
               regard, a story of risk different from Bernstein’s? And, if this diverse story is still
               to be told, how much may it help us to ‘define what it means to be a human being’
               in a Muslim context?
                  Indeed,  today  the  investigation  on  ριζα/rizq  is  far  from  being  purely
               speculative and confined to comparative linguistics or the domain of intellectual
               conjectures. On the contrary, it can be directly related to the development of a
               niche  of  the  financial  system  whose  outstanding  peculiarity,  to  Bernstein’s
               surprise, is to operate not ‘against’ but ‘in the Name of God’: namely, the market
               of Islamic finance.
                  In this direction, challenging the perils of the Mediterranean in the search for
               another root of safety from the unexpected (the ancient Greek ριζα), this article dares
               to look at human fortune in the light of the Arabic rizq, and investigating how a
               diverse anthropology of risk in Islam may actually result in alternative practices of
               risk management, as manifested today by Shari‘ah-compliant financial institutions.
                  Thus, the Islamic financial market and its peculiar principles (prohibitions of
               riba,  interest;  uncertainty  and  speculation,  gharar;  gambling,  maysir)  will  be
               depicted within an anthropology of time where not only the future, but also the
               present, are a divine (rather than human) creation, and where, accordingly, risk
               itself is deeply re-framed both as a concept and as a source of legitimate profit.
               Indeed, to the extent to which, as we will see, in a reality created directly by God
               the  future  remains  an  economic  opportunity  (Q. II:275:  «Allah  has  permitted
               trade»),  any  legitimate  profit  follows  from  man’s  responsibility  (al-kharaj  bi-l-
               daman) in performing Shari‘ah by participating in the divine creation of the ‘real’
               and as an ‘agent’ of the only ‘Actor’. It is this dual canon of ‘participation’ and
               ‘agency’ that coherently implies a conceptualization of risk in Islam, which is
               focused on the primacy of the real economy; exchange equilibrium (with any
               unlawful increase due to riba, gharar or maysir being prohibited); and profit-loss
               sharing (section 2 of this article).
                  As a result, alternative rationales rule risk management in Islamic finance. In fact,
               while risk continues to hold an economic value, this value is linked to real assets and
               business activities through the assumption of liability (‘profit follows responsibility’,
               al- kharaj bi-l-daman), leading to fundamental peculiarities in the practice of Islamic
               banking, insurance (takaful) and securities (sukuk) trade that can hardly be compared
               to conventional ones, as well as rejecting financial products, such as derivatives that
               are deemed lacking in any commercial value since nothing ‘real’ is actually traded
               (section 3). To conclude (section 4), the article will remark how this alternative story
               of risk would require further consideration in financial theory and regulation, for the
               benefit of a level playing field where conventional and Islamic finance would be able
               to co-exist and prosper under the same (God’s?) sky.


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