Name of the book: Islamic Capital Market Finance
Author: Dr. Abul Hassan
Associate Professor of Finance, IRC Finance and Digital Economy, KFUPM Business School, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Publisher: Board of Islamic Publications, D-308-A, Abul Fazal Enclave, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi, India; Email: [email protected], Phone:+91-11-71218923 Mobile: 9990862029
First Edition: 2023 ISBN: 978-81-955578-1-3
Pages: 432
Price: Hardbound: `550, Paperback: `400
Reviewed by Arshad Shaikh
Dr. Abul Hassan’s work, Islamic Capital Market Finance, is a comprehensive textbook on Islamic financial markets.
The author takes the readers on a journey of unravelling the Islamic capital and money markets through the prism of Islamic asset management. The Islamic financial services industry is growing at a rate of 15-20% per year, with Islamic financial institutions managing assets worth $2.5 trillion. The industry is confronted with the twin challenges of keeping pace with the innovations in various conventional financial products and services and simultaneously examining their “Shariah compliance” or feasibility in the “Islamic financial market space”. Hence, it is important for students, professors, the public, finance professionals, business analysts and all concerned stakeholders to upgrade themselves with the fundamentals and latest trends in the Islamic Capital Markets.
This book is a comprehensive treatise on both the Islamic outlook towards money and finance and the latest financial products available in the Islamic Capital Market. The book is also a must-read for policymakers and regulators to improve their understanding of the mechanism of Islamic asset management within the capital market segment. The book can act as a guide for students at the undergraduate and graduate levels who wish to master the intricacies of Islamic money and financial markets.
Dr. Abul Hassan, the author of “Islamic Capital Market Finance” has more than 17 years of teaching and research experience at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Currently, he is working as a Research Scientist II/Associate Professor in Finance at the KFUPM Business School, King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He has a first-class MA in Economics, an MSc in International Banking (Loughborough University, UK) and a PhD in Investment from the University of Durham. Dr. Abul Hassan has published 41 research papers in international peer-reviewed academic journals and presented 21 research papers at various international conferences in different parts of the world.
With the burgeoning market for Islamic finance, there is an acute need for awareness about the ethics and morals on which Islamic finance is founded along with the practical application of Shari’ah principles to Islamic financial instruments, markets and products. This book fulfils the need of university freshmen to learn the salient features, legal positions, functions, risk management and the BASEL accords, which apply to the Islamic finance industry. The students should however be familiar with mainstream financial theory.
The book enhances familiarity with the theoretical and practical implications of Islamic finances, examining Islamic ethical principles, products, markets and organisations in the context of Islamic asset management. The author simplifies the basic criteria of Islamic ethical principles in products, services, performance evaluation, assets and risk management and explains these topics with immense clarity. This will aid product development managers and financial specialists of Islamic asset management in developing a deeper understanding of the Islamic capital markets.
Some of the key features of the book include:
- A comprehensive presentation of topics with theoretical foundations.
- Each chapter opens with a statement of learning objectives.
- The material integrates mainstream and Islamic perspectives and provides real world financial structures and examples.
- Case studies are provided to help students build their understanding of real world issues.
- Simple language deployed to enable quick understanding of the complex concepts.
- Tables, diagram, figures and charts aid in visual learning.
- A glossary and review questions are provided at the end of the chapter to recap what students have learnt from the textual material.
The book is divided into 14 chapters. Some of the important topics covered across the book include:
- The basic concepts of Islamic finance
- The Islamic Capital Markets
- The Islamic Equity Markets
- Islamic Mutual Funds
- Private Equity
- Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in Shari’ah domain
- Islamic ETFs
- Islamic Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
- Financial futures (stock index futures), warrants, and options
- Islamic money markets recreating conventional financial products
- Islamic debt securities markets (Sukuk)
- Green Sukuk
- Basel Standards I, II and III
- Scope for the global growth of Islamic finance
Islamic finance is now an established form of offering financial services and is well recognised by global financial regulatory authorities and central banks across the globe. It is being practised in more than 90 countries globally and the number of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) operating in the sector has crossed 500. Some international organisations and regional financial centres are helping to standardise Islamic banking products, thereby increasing its credibility. Conventional banks are offering Islamic windows or full-fledged affiliates with an array of Islamic financial products.
The Islamic Capital Market Finance is heralding a paradigm change in financial services by introducing the concept of ethics and a moral compass without compromising on the relevance and relatability of these services in the real economy.
The rapid expansion of global Islamic finance has significantly increased the need for finance professionals who understand the conventional practice of conducting commercial and financial transactions as well as the mechanism to harmonise them with Shari’ah principles.
Islamic Capital Market Finance by Dry Abul Hassan is an important, ground-breaking and distinctive book of learning and scholarship in the domain of Islamic capital market and Islamic asset management.
As former German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said, “Islamic Finance is growing in importance for the global economy. It is therefore important that international financial institutions consider questions related to integrating Islamic finance into global finance.”
This book answers all those questions. It opens the doors to understanding Islamic Capital Market Finance and leads the learner to master “the future of finance”.