Author’s acknowledgements

I am indebted to several people in helping me to write this book. My dear friend, Faisal Sheikh and my colleague, Anas Hassan have in particular played a significant role in reviewing and providing valuable feedback on the book.

Faisal is a Wealth Manager at Barclays – as someone interested to learn more about Islamic finance and a financial professional, he is typical of someone that the book is aimed at. Therefore his feedback was very relevant and insightful and I’m sure resulted in enhancing the overall quality of the book.

Anas’ professional career has centred around Business Strategy and he currently works alongside me as the Head of Business Finance at Simply Sharia. His feedback on the draft chapters was invaluable in helping me project the message in the most effective way.

Others who have provided me feedback and advice as I’ve been writing the book include Lawrie Chandler, Tasnim Raja, Tarek El-Diwani, Kate Edmunds, Nyra Mahmood and my wife, Tassnima Karbani.

I would also like to acknowledge all the contributors to the book:

Iqbal Nasim, who has written about the obligatory form of charity due from Muslims every year, known as Zakat. He is a leading authority on the subject and is the Chief Executive of the UK based charity called National Zakat Foundation.

Haroon Rashid, who has written on the subject of Sharia compliant estate distribution and Islamic Wills. Haroon is a lawyer who has specialised in this area and is widely recognised as a leading authority on the subject and has played a key role in pioneering Islamic Wills that are tax efficient in the UK.

Robert Van De Weyer, who has contributed an opinion piece entitled the ‘Christian View of Usury’. Robert is a practising Christian priest and a former Economics lecturer at Cambridge University. He presents a fascinating view of how Islamic finance principles are consistent with Christian and broader ethical values.

Dr Sayd Farook, has contributed an opinion piece entitled ‘The Future of Islamic Finance’, where he provides an amazing insight into the journey of Islamic Finance to date and what he believes the industry needs to do to achieve its potential. Dr Sayd is the Global Head of Islamic Capital Markets at Thomson Reuters and has been played a significant role in producing some of the most insightful analysis and reports on the global Islamic finance industry to date.