I recognized person mentioned at the end of the article: Tarek El Diwany (same first name as me spelled differently) had a part in the "Four Horsemen" documentary (https://youtu.be/5fbvquHSPJU?t=3479). I found an article about him in https://meic.cfainstitute.org/2012/03/21/islamic-finance-tar... .
Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
11–20 of 163 posts
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#12Very interesting but need a non-paywalled source.
Reload in incognito mode.
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#13Very interesting--I had never heard of this before. It seems the higher interest rate is predicated on finding investors who want to take loans at higher-than-market-clearing rates. Does anyone have any insight into why non-Muslims are getting loans through these banks? I don't see how this scales to consistently provide higher returns, especially as more money moves into this system. Are tobacco and alcohol related…
I would expect a sharia bank to provide market-beating returns to investors because it can charge above-market mortgage rates to borrowers who have no alternative. From the article:
> Al Rayan’s home purchase plan (its sharia-compliant version of a mortgage) charges 4.24% in the first two years, almost double the market average. Even so, 12% of Al Rayan’s home-purchase customers are non-Muslims.
I'm as stumped as you are regarding that 12% number though.
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#14Who wrote this article?
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#15Who wrote this article?
I don't see an author mentioned.
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#16Who wrote this article?
By long-standing tradition, the Economist's articles have no byline.
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#17Who wrote this article?
Sounds like a PR piece
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#18Who wrote this article?
Common question here - standard Economist policy is never to name their writers and correspondents, except very very rarely. Their content is published under the name of the newspaper, not the individual author.
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#19This is great. I'm not a Muslim, but learning that there are banks that don't invest in arms and tobacco - this is great news, and I guess I'll take a closer look at halal banking soon. For too long I've been bothered by the fact that I don't have much say in where my funds are invested by the 'normal banks' - the fact that there is an option for those of us who don't want to participate in the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex, is indeed great news.
Re: Why non-Muslims are converting to sharia finance
#20How is this on Hacker News?
Its quite interesting. I'm a hacker, and I'd really rather not invest my money in things I find morally objectionable, such as arms and tobacco. So this is indeed a great article.