The Islamic perspective: making your money work; new investment patterns for international investors

This article examines the Islamic Investment industry through a historical perspective, offering a critical analysis of trends and an insightful analysis of the road ahead. The Islamic Investment market has historically been over-weighted toward trade finance transactions and real estate. Mutual Funds (often described as Asset Management) have become increasingly common with the advent of the Dow Jones Islamic Indices. Yet even Mutual Funds are an extremely limited option for the wealthy Islamic client. All of these factors contribute to the leapfrogging of the traditional Private Banker by the wealthiest Islamic family groups. The way ahead for the Private Banker is threefold: achieving familiarity with Islamic finance structures such as zakat, murabaha, etc., the direct selling of IPO opportunities, which traditionally have no interest-based leverage, and focusing on the oft-neglected field of real estate investment. With these principles in mind, there is great potential for the ma