The next book in this list is ‘Al Mufeed (Transactions of Islamic Banks) written by the Head of Shariah at Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB), Sheikh Hamad Farooq Al Shaikh. The book is an introduction to the Fiqh of Islamic financial transactions and was reviewed by both Sheikh Abdul Latif Mahmood Al Mahmood, the Chairman of BisB’s Shariah Board and Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, a member of the Shariah Board.
To be honest, I had not heard of this book until I moved to KSA when it was highly recommended to me by one of my colleagues working in Shariah Advisory. I found the book to be a beneficial introduction for anyone wanting to learn more about the applied Fiqh of Islamic financial transactions as practiced in the contemporary Islamic finance industry as it is written by an author with extensive practical experience and was written to address a gap in such literature for beginners as most literature available at the time were more complex works, something which the author experienced himself. Furthermore, the author specifically did not go into too many technicalities or points of dispute in order not to confuse someone new to the field.
The book is easy to comprehend and the author has used illustrative tables and diagrams which should make it easier for the reader to understand. Another nice touch is the author’s use of various quotes, statistics and interesting facts regarding Islamic finance. The book consists of 7 chapters, with each chapter covering a variety of different topics. Going through the book would give the reader a good introductory understanding of the various Islamic financial products offered by Islamic banks.
The 2nd edition of the book is available in English (translation) for free from the BisB website from the following link:
Al-Mufeed-transactions.pdf (bisb.com)
To read the previous post (#11) of this series, please click the link below:
