Episode 6 - Mufti Abdullah Nana: Apathy and the Road to Solutions for Islamic Finance

DebtFreeMuslims Podcast

Debt Free Muslims Podcast Episode 6

http://debtfreemuslims.com/episode6

This episode is brought to you by MuslimMatters.org - Because Muslims matter.

Our guest for this episode is Mufti Abdullah Nana. He graduated with honors from UC Berkeley with a degree in Business and Economics. After accomplishing his academic goals, Abdullah Nana went on to pursue the higher Islamic Sciences in South Africa and attained a Masters-equivalent degree in Islamic Theology. Thereafter, he was specially selected to enter a legal verdicts and jurisprudential course where he graduated with Honors here as well. Abdullah Nana is a widely-accepted research scholar in the fields of Halal and Islamic Finance. He has written and translated several publications and research papers on these subjects as well. Particular to the subject of Halal, Abdullah Nana has traveled throughout North America, England, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa to understand the standards and practices used in the Halal Industry.

In this episode we cover:

-Mufti Abdullah's background and getting into studying Islamic Finance.

-Challenges facing Islamic Finance in the US

-Shortage of Islamic Finance scholars

-The need to understand auditing and regulations

-The need for alternatives to existing finance models, and understanding that solutions are multi-faceted and everyone plays a role.

-How to deal with confusion and feelings of being overwhelmed when looking at all the difference of opinion about Islamic finance

-Putting other finance items on the radar such as estate planning and insurance.

-Islamic Insurance (Takaful) and understanding the basic objections to traditional insurance models.

-Utilizing waqf [endowment] in the takaful models.

-The concept of gharar [uncertainty] as it pertains to Islamic finance contracts

-The biggest roadblock to implementing Islamic insurance alternatives is surprisingly simply a lack of demand.

-The need to cure apathy with the Muslim community in regards to finance issues.

Links:

Lek Nana Family: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lek_Nana

Huffington Post: Imams Learning Islamic Finance - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/imams-learning-islamic-fi_n_906299.html

Halal Advocates: http://www.halaladvocates.org/

Harvard Islamic Finance Seminar: http://ifp.law.harvard.edu/login/conference

Straightway Ethical: http://www.straightwayethical.com/

Follow Mufti Abdullah Nana on Twitter - https://twitter.com/MuftiAbdullah

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