Assets managed within Islamic banking and finance are massive and growing rapidly in both monetary and geographic terms. In Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Malaysia, Islamic banking is the premier form of financial transaction. The industry also has a niche presence in the rest of the MENA region and many other countries around the world are toying with the idea of sharia-compliant banking. On a technical level, analysts often separate the sector into four separate segments: commercial Islamic banks, investment Islamic banks, takaful institutions and Islamic finance houses. But Abdel-Maoula Chaar, the Islamic finance project manager at the Beirut-based Ecole Supérieure des Affaires, applies what he considers a more important dichotomy. Chaar believes it is more helpful to view the industry in terms of “Islamic banks versus sharia-compliant banks.” He suggested that Islamic banks, like Dubai Islamic bank, have a moral underpinning to their operations. Banks of this nature tend
