In Chapter 9 in this collection, Volker Nienhaus, who first contributed to the topic of
Islamic banking over 20 years ago (Nienhaus, 1983), advanced reasons for the present day
permissiveness of the SSBs that revolved around the ‘capture’ theory of regulation first
advanced by George Stigler (1971). His observations prompt a number of questions. Is
Nienhaus correct in surmising that many SSBs may have been ‘captured’ by the bankers?
Has the Islamic ban on usury (riba) effectively been lost with the bankers’ success? Has
Islam, unlike Christianity, maintained the rhetoric on usury, while admitting the practice?
Perhaps, after all, the modernist or revisionist views on riba outlined in Chapter 3 may
have triumphed in the end, in this roundabout way, over the views of the traditionalists.
Or can it be argued in defence of the SSBs that an important principle, namely that there
be at least some risk in financial transactions, however small, to justify reward, has been
maintained under Islam?
These are questions that we leave readers to ponder while working their way through
the chapters that follow. When doing so, it may be worth keeping in mind that the Islamic
financial system is still passing through the growing pains of developing into a legitimate
and equitable financial method in world capital markets. In that sense the system is still
engaged in the search for, and debates about, answers to questions such as those posed
in previous paragraphs. Nevertheless, it is our belief that this process of product innov-
ation and development, which necessarily involves a sequence of trial and error, will
eventually lead to truly Islamic financial products that will enable the system to achieve
its original intent of meeting the legitimate financial needs of those sharing Islamic
ideals.
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16Handbook of Islamic banking