Vatican supports Islamic Banking

Submitted by bary soetoro (Indonesia), Jan 15, 2010 at 21:01

Vatican supports Islamic Banking. Its seem that Islamic not only base on Koran also in Bible. The Islamic Banking will become the solution of global crises. See the article below:

Newspapers have often devoted reams of newsprint to the supposed conflict between Christianity and Islam. In fact, one book, political scientist Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations", has popularized the concept of future conflict between people on the basis of their cultural and religious identities – a dystopian future where Christians and Muslims will be on opposite sides. However, one news item that may demolish this argument is the Vatican's support for Islamic banking.

Although this fact may be completely opposite to what the popular media may have us believe, it is, nevertheless, true. Earlier this year, the Vatican, center of Catholic Christianity, said banks should look at the rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst their clients at a time of global economic crisis. This news came out in no less an authoritative outlet than the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

In the 5^th March 2009 issue of the paper, author Loretta Napoleoni and Abaxbank Spa fixed income strategist, Claudia Segre, said that "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." They suggested "Western banks could use tools such as the Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, as collateral", adding that sukuk may be used to fund the "car industry or the next Olympic Games in London."

Justifying the similarity of opinions between Islam and Christianity regarding global finance, the newspaper's editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said that "the great religions have always had a common attention to the human dimension of the economy."

The Vatican has previously been critical of the destructive excesses of the interest-based conventional financial system during the ongoing crisis. The Pope, Benedict XVI, alluded late last year to the illusory nature of interest money, and the Vatican has also recently been critical of the free market system.

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