The Hard Truth of Islamic Finance

This “A Mini Guide to Accounting for Islamic Financial Products” starts with the development of Islamic finance as well as accounting standards and development of AAOIFI which aims to develop standards on accounting, auditing, ethics and governance and disseminate them on the target market.

The guide also highlights selected accounting issues addressed by AAOIFI : substance over form, prudence, mudarabah investment accounts and asset valuation. This is followed by how information of financial statement of an Islamic bank helps its major users, like equity holders, holders of investment accounts, regulatory agencies and others.

The guide also points out the main differences in the presentation of financial statements of Islamic Financial Institutions. Among them are: how assets are defined and inclusion of equity of unrestricted investment account holders. The differences arise as a result of utilizing a Shari’ah compliant contract to bring into effect a particular product.

The last section discusses some of the more popular contracts such as murabahah, istisna’, ijarah, mudarabah and musharakah. A few case studies are also incorporated for different contracts to give more understanding on the topic to the readers.

This book compares and contrasts Islamic world views and Western theoretical perspectives on international relations to suggest that a combination of the two could lead to a mutually beneficial redefinition of contemporary international relations utilizing Western theoretical tools and incorporating an Islamic perspective. Particular focus is given to the Islamic concept of istikhlaf as an ontological and normative foundation. The reasoning being that all man-made social arrangements on “earth”, as well as international society, should be considered a realm of istikhlaf. This allows for return to an eternal and critical first principle, linking all social roles to this principle, which is that man as designated by the Qur’an, is God’s khalifah or Vicegerent on earth. It’s a statement of great magnitude.