Murabaah-Taawun financing : an innovation in Islamic personal financing

Abstract EN

Entrepreneurs, especially in developing societies, which include many Muslim countries among their fold, face a herculean task in up-scaling their businesses due to a lack of capital to procure relevant assets to grow their businesses.

The world Islamic banks’ competitiveness report (2016) identified poor financial inclusion as one of the critical factors responsible for the uneven distribution of wealth in the Muslim world.

This study presents the Murābaḥah-Taʻāwun financing product as an innovative addition to the range of financial products available on the Islamic banking shelf to reduce the incidence of poverty.

Murābaḥah-Taʻāwun is operationalized where a group of entrepreneurs contribute funds together under a recognized Islamic bank while allowing every partner access to the fund on a rotational basis for the purchase of an asset according to a pre-defined arrangement.

The study highlighted the importance of Murābaḥah-Taʻāwun as an Islamic financial contract by reviewing relevant extant literature.

The proposed product shows that greater financial inclusion can be achieved without recourse to ribÉÒ and thus will reduce poverty among Muslims.

Keywords: Murābaḥah Taʻāwun, Entrepreneur, Islamic Banking, Poverty, Financial Inclusion.