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IANUS n. 26-2022                       ISSN 1974-9805





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               moving from a restricted domain into larger commercial practice.  At present,
               Islamic financial institutions offer to the generality of customers (Muslim or not)
               an immense variety of products, from investment-deposits (so-called PSIAs, profit
               sharing investment accounts) to takaful, lit. ‘guaranteeing each other’, the Islamic
               risk-shared insurance model aimed at avoiding ‘uncertainty’ (gharar); as well as
               equity fund management and Islamic securities (sukuk).
                  In compliance with Shari‘ah, fundamental peculiarities characterize Islamic
               financial  transactions,  whose  validity  requires,  apart  from  the  avoidance  of
               prohibited investments (such as alcohol, pork, pornography), the elimination of
               any profit deriving from an ‘unlawful increase’, that is to say, interest (prohibition
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               of riba), unreasonable uncertainty (ban of gharar) and gambling (maysir).
                  These  rules  necessarily  result  in  a  favour  towards  asset-  and  equity-based
               financial instruments and a corresponding dismissal of both debt-based products
               (likely  to  produce  riba)  and  hazard-affected  securities  (gharar,  maysir).  More
               precisely, since conventional loans are essentially gratuitous in Islamic law (due
               to  the  prohibition  of  riba),  ordinary  interest-bearing  credit  transactions  are
               replaced in Islamic finance by asset-backed contracts, such as murabaha (mark-up
               or cost-plus sale), salam (advance purchase), istisna‘ (commission to manufacture)
               and hire-and-sale (ijara); or by equity-based instruments such as mudaraba (silent
               partnership)  and  musharaka  (full  partnership).  In  both  cases  (asset-backed  or
               equity instruments), legitimate profit has to derive from the necessary assumption
               of  a  liability  correlated  to  a  reference  entity,  according  to  the  fundamental
               principle al-kharaj bi-l-daman, that is to say, profit (i.e. the chance of gain, in the
               sense  of  what  is  someone’s  due,  what  someone  deserves;  see  Wehr:  ﻚﺟﺮﺧ  ﺍﺬﻫ
               «that’s  what  you  need,  what  you  deserve» )  relates  to  liability,  i.e.  the  risk  of
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               potential loss for which the person is responsible (from the root ضمن damina, ‘to
               be or become responsible or liable, give security or guaranty’).
                  Thus, another notion of ‘fortune’, different from, while complementary to, ﺭﺯﻕ
               rizq, ‘(God’s) sustenance’, appears here: that is to say, the basic postulate in Islamic


                  24  The literature dealing with Islamic economics and finance is enormous. Valuable references
               remain  ARCHER -  KARIM  (eds.),  Islamic  finance:  the  regulatory  challenge,  New  York, 2007; AYUB,
               Understanding Islamic finance, New York, 2007; CHAPRA, Islamic welfare State and its role in the economy,
               cit.;  CHAPRA,  Islam and  economic  development,  Islamabad,  1993; EL-GAMAL,  Islamic  finance.  Law,
               economics,  and  practice,  Cambridge,  2006;  HASSAN  -  LEWIS  (eds.),  Handbook  of  Islamic  banking,
               Cheltenham, UK, 2007; IQBAL - LLEWELLYN (eds.), Islamic banking and finance: new perspectives on
               profit-sharing and risk, Cheltenham, UK, 2002; Khan - Porzio (eds.), Islamic banking and finance in the
               European Union. A challenge, Cheltenham, UK, 2010; SIDDIQI, Banking without interest, cit.; SIDDIQI,
               Issues in Islamic banking: selected papers, cit.; USMANI, Introduction to Islamic finance, Karachi, 2000;
               VOGEL - HAYES, Islamic law and finance: religion, risk and return, Arab and Islamic Law Series, The
               Hague, 1998; WARDE, Islamic finance in the global economy, Edinburgh, 2000.
                  25  SALEH, Unlawful gain and legitimate profit in Islamic law: riba, gharar and Islamic banking, II ed.,
               London, 1992; CATTELAN, From the concept of haqq to the prohibitions of riba, gharar and maysir in
               Islamic finance, in International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance, 2009, 2 (3/4), 384-397.
                  26  WEHR, A dictionary of modern written Arabic, cit.

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