This article examines the peculiarities of Islamic banking. Starting from the history of Islamic finance and Islamic banking, the article offers an insight into the relationship between the Muslim believer and Islamic economic principles, despite all the variations on the subject in state regulations. On this basis, the contribution seeks a definition of Islamic banking as comprehensive as possible of Islamic banking, its basic peculiarities, and differences with the conventional banking model, also considering the role of the Islamic infrastructure network. It is not only a comparison between specific technical instruments, but a different way of conceiving the economy, its instruments, its objectives, and the role of man. As in the West, the Islamic financial system is bank centric. There are 235 Islamic banks operating in the world, including 9 in the 27 countries of the European Union, with a large presence in London. It is also worth noting the spread of shadow banking systems around the world which, although they also include types of intermediaries whose operations do not appear immediately critical, have led to a loss of control over the system on the part of various national supervisory authorities and have therefore unwisely encouraged recourse to so-called creative finance. In this line of thought, highlighting the peculiarities as well as the operational profiles of Islamic banking is useful to stimulate the debate on an increasingly growing topic that would seem to be a possible antidote to the unstable economic landscape in which Europe or more generally the West finds itself, but also to stimulate the debate on an ethical project of money management.

(by Alessandro Cupri)