Islamic Finance

The Islamic Finance Project and Islamic Legal Studies Program of Harvard Law School organized a panel discussion in Pound Hall on September 26, 2011 entitled “Islamic Finance: Bankruptcy, Financial Distress and Debt Restructuring”. The goal of the seminar was to create an understanding of recently reported cases of bankruptcy and debt restructuring of Islamic finance products.

Based on observations and interviews with microfinance practitioners in Bangladesh, I explore problematic perceptions of traditional scholars of Islamic law and the Islamic finance sector that may obstruct cooperation with microfinance institutions. However, suspicion and misunderstanding flow both ways. Microfinance is poorly understood by the Islamic finance sector, and arguments against the activities of microfinance institutions often mischaracterize them and do not take into account ground realities.