Page 105 - Aamir Rehman Gulf Capital and Islamic Finance The Rise of the New Global Players

3 CHAPTER

Values and Value:

Islamic Finance in the

Gulf and Beyond

[The] ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring
banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark
every financial service. 1
—Vatican publication, March 2009

Once, on a flight from Zurich to Riyadh, I was seated next to a busi-
nessperson who was visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time. She was
a senior executive at a massive global energy conglomerate for which
the Gulf region was critical to business success. Although her role was
not directly related to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), she was
visiting the region as part of a project in her portfolio of responsibilities.
When I mentioned my involvement in Islamic finance, she was
noticeably intrigued. She asked me to tell her more about the field. I
said I would, but that first I was curious about what the term Islamic
finance meant to her. “To me,” she said, “it sounds like providing
financing for mosques or funding for Muslim charities.” She then
went on to discuss the presence of Muslim charitable institutions in

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