Page 165 - IANUS n. 26 - Fideiussioni omnibus e intesa antitrust: interferenze e rimedi
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IANUS n. 26-2022                       ISSN 1974-9805





               property (muthamman) to the insured in return. Likewise, the insurer has received
               property (muthamman) without paying a price (thaman) in exchange. Accordingly,
               the trade fails because it entails “consuming the property of another unjustly” (akl
               amwal al-nas bi-al-batil)”. In the view of the jurists, it is unjust for the insurer to
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               keep the property of the insured without ever giving him property in return».


               4. Conclusions: another, remarkable, story of risk?

                  Sailing (metaphorically) the Mediterranean from its Western to the Arab side,
               in search for firm land (the Greek ριζα) to avoid the perils of the sea, this article
               has moved from the Western risk to the Arabic rizq ﻕﺯﺭ, in the attempt to provide
               an  interpretation  of  risk  management  within  the  distinctive  anthropology  of
               Islamic finance.
                  In this direction, it has been suggested that in order to look at the hazard of the
               future, ﺮﻫﺯ zahr, the ‘dice’ of human chances, through an inter-cultural approach,
               Bernstein’s Remarkable story of risk should be read not ‘against’, but ‘in the Name
               of God’. Indeed, in an anthropology of time where not only the future, but also
               the present, is a divine (rather than human) creation, the conception of risk is re-
               framed at its very roots, leading to criteria of risk management that cannot leave
               aside  the  ‘real’/‘right’  (haqq)  of  God’s  (Haqq)  creation.  Thus,  primacy  of  real
               economy, exchange equilibrium and the pursuit of profit-loss sharing become the
               cornerstone of any legitimate human profit (kharaj) as a result of an assumption
               of  liability  (daman);  and  the  paradigm  of  banking,  insurance  and  investment
               activities,  necessarily  framed  in  the  light  of  asset-  backed  and  commercial
               enterprises, becomes hardly comparable to the conventional one.
                  Of course, the voyage from the Western risk to the Arabic rizq ﻕﺯﺭ, and then
               daman ﻦمﺿ as human responsibility for performing Shari‘ah as source of legitimate
               profit (ﺝﺮﺧ kharaj), has been roughly ‘mapped’ in these pages, and rapidly sketched:
               much further investigation is needed for a comparative history of risk, according to
               an inter-cultural perspective. But, to the extent to which this article may represent
               a little contribution to the matter, two final considerations are advanced, both with
               regard to the Western and Islamic theories of risk management, and to their current
               co-existence in the international financial market.
                  First, looking at both sides of the Mediterranean, another protagonist, next to
               risk, should be considered for a comprehensive, comparative financial theory: the
               idea of ‘credit’, and credit management. In this regard, if in Bernstein’s Against the
               gods the role of Christian thought in the history of risk is marginalized, the great
               cultural historian Jacques Le Goff, in contrast, has highlighted how religion must
               not  be  forgotten  when  writing  the  history  of  money  and  credit  in  Western




                  57  FADEL, The regulation of risk in Islamic law, the common law, and federal regulatory law, cit., 83.

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