An outline of Islamic banking: its history and its contrasts with Western banking

The modern Islamic banking movement is a movement against a system inconsistent with the shari'a. Historically, Muslims had a heavy influence on the development of Europe. The idea of checks and the concept of pay slips came from Muslim traders. After Europeans began managing the banking system, interest was introduced to attract more capital. While Islamic economics views humans as God's vice-regents and demands that they act as such, Western economics values money excessively. Money can produce wealth through interest or through investment. The latter is the Islamic way. Riba is unjust because it punishes a borrower for the failure of a venture, even though that failure is not necessarily the borrower's fault. Riba hurts entire societies and is prohibited strongly in the Qur'an.