the benefit of all stakeholders. two important aspects of islamic banking that i would like to safely highlight today are that islamic finance encourages profit and risk sharing, thus involving greater participation of both banker and customer, a notion that could easily be adopted by conventional banking and of course the proscription of usery or riba in islamic finance. in fact usery has also been condemned in the vedic texts as well as in religious texts from budhism, judaism, christianity and islam. at times many ancient nations, such as, china, greece and rome, have outlawed loans with interest. the pivotal change took place in 1545 in the english - speaking world through “ an act against userie ” promulgated during the reign of king henry the viii. while others followed suit, the muslims kept to their traditions alongside conventional banking. allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to share with you our views on islamic banking in mauritius. one participant dr manfred had a comment yesterday on how we are promoting islamic banking when muslims are modestly represented here. first of all, we should be bis central bankers ’ speeches clear in our mind that ib is not reserved for muslims only. there is no such tag on ib products either in mauritius or in any other part of the world. the products are designed according to defined principles and are vetted by learned scholars. if you like the product, you adopt it. mr jaufeerally, our first speaker yesterday, referred to a very basic example, that of chicken briani. all of you may know that briani is a very popular dish for local muslims. i would go further by saying that as muslims ( again i am not a scholar here ) there can never be any harm to share a halal product. the reverse may not be permissible. our objective at the central bank is to offer an alternate mode of finance to local stakeholders and also to enlarge our offerings in the offshore financial domain. the tendency to focus on profits alone may not always be socially desirable. of course, we do not dispute the fact that banks should be profitable, but in these crisis times where customers ’ rights are being propelled in the forefront, banks should also consider to share the burden of customers. islamic finance in africa modern islamic finance was born in egypt when a commercial bank opened its cairo branch to process the financial transactions relating to the construction of the suez canal in 1890 and the notion of interest or riba was criticized by the then islamic scholars. consequently, the muslim world

mohammed iqbal belath : role of islamic finance in the development of africa address by mr mohammed iqbal belath, second deputy governor of the bank of mauritius, at the opening ceremony of the seminar on the “ role of islamic finance in the development of africa ”, balaclava, 6 september 2012. * * * governor bheenick, excellencies from the diplomatic corps, chief executives of banks & financial institutions, chief executive of the mba, mr jaseem ahmed secretary general of the ifsb, distinguished guests, ladies & gentlemen, a very good morning to you all. it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all at the seminar on the role of islamic finance in the development of africa. some of you present today have travelled from far to attend this seminar in this beautiful corner of the island. we hope that the arrangements put in place meet your expectations and wish you a most pleasant stay among us. this is the second time that the bank of mauritius is organizing an event of this scale to promote islamic finance in mauritius. the first time was in may 2009, the bank successfully co - organised the seminar on islamic capital markets in collaboration with the financial services commission and ifsb. i hope that this seminar will provide you opportunities to discuss and raise issues in islamic finance, common to africa. although many issues will probably still remain unresolved, you will leave with more fruitful ideas than before. this gathering of new ideas and schools of thought on islamic finance will intensify awareness on the role of islamic finance in the development of africa. sharing of each - others ’ experience, enhancing networking and promoting awareness would probably be the main ingredients to make this seminar successful. in order to access a wider audience from all walks of life and across all communities in mauritius, i mean those non - experts who are interested but not closely acquainted with takaful, mudarabha, ijarah, to name a few of the jargon, the bank is hosting a public forum on this friday, to demystify islamic finance. i hope that the public forum will reach a larger mass and help to create more awareness around islamic finance as an alternative way of doing banking in our society. ladies and gentlemen, i am not an expert in the field of islamic finance, so i will not venture to make any comparison between islamic finance and conventional banking, or to dwell over the merits of one system over the other. i would rather say that we can all learn from each other and explore different approaches for