By
Ahmed Al-Matboli, IOL Correspondent
BERLIN,
May 14, 2005, (IslamOnline.net) – The western German city of Cologne
will host on May 22 a conference on the Islamic banking industry,
which has picked up steam across the world.
“Islamic
financial dealings in Europe have indeed come to the economic fore in
view of the steady growing number of Muslims in the continent,”
Michael Saleh Gassner, the one-day event’s organizer, told
IslamOnline.net.
He
said there are some 3.5 million Muslims in Germany besides large
minorities in France, Britain, Austria and Switzerland.
“They
need to strike a balance between their religion and financial
dealings, especially when it comes to mortgages and insurance,”
stressed Gassner, an official with the Cologne-based Islamic Finance
organization.
The
conference, to be hosted by the Bosnian Mosque in the city, addresses
Shari`ah-compliant financial dealings such as buying stocks, bank
loans and mortgages as well as Turkey’s Islamic banking system.
It
will also feature prominent Muslim economists including Mohammad
Nuruallah Shikder of the British Yasaar organization and Wahid Qaisar
of the Islamic Bank of Britain.
Gassner
said the increasing needs of Muslim minorities across Europe makes
more pressing the need for establishing Islamic banks, citing as an
example the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) which opened its doors last
year.
“The
IBB has turned the Islamic financial dealings in the country from
obscure to a recognized and officially-supervised banking system,”
he said.
Turkey’s
Istanbul played host last September to the International Islamic
Finance Forum (IIFF), known as the “Muslim Davos forum.”
Worldwide
Seminars
Gassner
also said that his organization is planning to organize and
participate this year in a series of seminars and conferences on the
Islamic banking industry in world cities like Frankfurt, Geneva and
Jeddah.
“Such
events provide much-needed answers for Muslims in Europe on Islam’s
stance on bank dealings,” he added.
Gassner
said German banks, for instance, have not yet met the needs of the
Muslim minority with the absence of an Islamic bank.
“Unfortunately,
there are no plans on the horizon for an Islamic bank in Germany,”
he noted.
He
put at 80 out of 2000 German financial institutions providing
Shari`ah-complaint services to Muslims.
“This
suggests that an Islamic bank would find a fertile ground in the
country,” Gassner maintained.
He
further said that the IBB is planning to extend its services to the
German market in four years’ time and that the giant Kuwait-Turk
financial institution is mulling the same possibility.
The
financial expert criticized, in the meantime, rich Muslims in Europe
for not launching ventures with the aim of eradicating poverty among
their fellow Muslims or even offering them social services.
The
Islamic banking industry, which began almost three decades ago, has
made substantial growth and attracted the attention of investors and
bankers across the world.
Growing
at an estimated 15 percent annually, the Islamic finance market is
currently estimated to be worth more than $300 billion with more than
200 Islamic finance institutions operating worldwide.
Lloyds
TSB, Britain's fifth-largest bank, became the third bank in the
country to offer Shari`ah- compliant mortgage services.
The
move came after the bank launched an Islamic bank account, which also
offers no interest or overdraft facilities.
