According to a Reuters story, Islamic finance is likely to grow in the United States and Europe, where banking products are marketed to a relatively well-educated Muslim population.
Banking that respects the Islamic ban on charging interest is spreading not only throughout Islamic countries, but into the West as well. “It is an industry that is likely to survive in the medium term, due to continued existence of customers who value Islamic jurist approval of its modes of operation,” Rice University economics professor Mahmoud Amin El-Gamal wrote in a Treasury Department “occasional paper.?