You guys are harsh as for Meaningless waffle well both of you misunderstand Indeed Sukuk are the nearest thing to an islamic bond but that give no understanding as why does Islam need an alternative Sukuk The key point is that within islamic finance they can not invest in conventional fixed income securities and hence have created a kind of subsititute Why can t the use conventional bonds well for the key reasons mentioned in the definition As such understanding why they can not invest in typical bonds gives a better undertstanding of what are the key structural features in Sukuk Wikipediatrix is right is that in is a massively summarised version of an 8000 word paper I wrote on the subject cited by FT Bloomberg Reuters Gulf news et al I also provide commentary to BusinessWeek I saw a blank space under the defn never saw the old one you mention and thought the topic was to important to leave empty its odd that you are confident enought to rubbish my effort while offering no contribution of your own Anyhow free country web etc kho