Islamic banking: consolidating the vision

The Islamic banking movement has gone through three phases: expansion, consolidation, and acceptance. The momentum of Islamic banks has led to their status of 'cautious respect' on the international scene. This respect has been earned despite the skepticism of Western bankers. Many Muslims are today showing an increasing level of confidence in the Islamic banking system. It therefore follows that a movement is developing to create an integrated network of financial services based on Islam and Qur'anic principles. Such a system is being designed to deal with services in banking, solidarity, and finance all conforming to shari`a .