ohh goody… I chance to cut and paste my chunk on Islamic finance from another thread…
At this link is a description of the Saudi American’s Islamic Fund. It includes a description of how money is invested in a manner whereby all returns are halaal, by 4 leading scholars of the Ahle-Sunnah.
The general gist of Islamic finance, as I understand, is the basis that:
buying low, selling high is halaal
profit/loss sharing is halaal
fixed return is haraam.
So, for example take savings accounts as currently exist under the Western banking system.
I put $25,000 dollars is a savings account. The bank then invests that money, ie. in property, shares, etc. and makes a profit. Effectively, they then pay me back the money together with a small, fixed share of the profit, say 5% of the value of my account, annually. Even if the bank makes a big profit, I’ll only see 5%; if they make a loss, I’m still guaranteed my 5%.
This is not allowed Islamically. At the end of year 1, no matter what happens, I’ll have $26,250.
An Islamic banking system forbids fixed-returns. In an Islamic bank account, the bank would take the money and invest it. Now say the value of the money goes up by 10%, so the money is worh $27,500, a profit of $2,500. The bank is allowed to take a share of the profits, (agreed and fixed beforehand, say, 50%), and so you get back $26,250 at the end of the year, a 5% gain for you. The total profit is shared (not neccessarily equally) between you and the bank.
But now suppose the bank lost 10% of your money, so the money is now worth $23,500, a loss of $2,500. Now you bear part of the loss. As you agreed to share 50% of the profit/loss, the amount of money in your account becomes $24,750. The profit/loss has been shared - this is the Islamic concept.
As for interest-free mortgages, there are a number of ways to do this. The most simple of these is based on the buy-low sell-high concept.
I want house A, costing $300,000. I do not have $300,000 in my pocket. So I need a mortgage. I go to an Islamic bank, which buys the house for $300,000, and then sells it to me for, say, $360,000, with the payment staggered over time.
The amount I pay is fixed as never exceeding $360,000. Naturally, should I repeatedly default on payments, the bank has the right to evict me and claim the house.
Because the amount paid is fixed, and there is no interest involved, the mortgage is considered halaal. The bank has merely bought the house at a low price and is selling it to me at a higher one, and allowing me the luxury of staggering the payment over time.