Is Islamic finance safe?

As we’ve sometimes noted here, advocates have claimed that Islamic, Sharia-compliant financial products and systems are safer than conventional ones. At Davos, reports Reuters, a top regulator for the government of Qatar disagrees:

“There is some assumption that some of it is cosmetically more comforting, but when so many Islamic instruments are now trying to mimic the effect of conventional products, you need to examine if they carry the same risk profile,” Philip Thorpe, chief executive of Qatar Financial Center Regulatory Authority, told Reuters.

“It’s a myth for anyone to assume anything about financial products, including Islamic finance,” he said.

Read more at Reuters.

Nathan Schneider is a former editor at large for The Immanent Frame and an executive producer and senior editor for Frequencies. He is author of Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse and God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet, both published by University of California Press. His journalism has appeared in Harper'sThe NationThe Chronicle of Higher EducationThe New York TimesReligion Dispatches, and elsewhere. He is also an editor of the online publications Waging Nonviolence and Killing the Buddha, and his website is The Row Boat. Read all of Nathan Schneider's TIF interviews here.

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