The limited number of Sharia scholars has meant the same
\ngroup of men are on various advisory boards\u00a0which has\u00a0led to criticism
\nthat people can go “fatwa shopping” and that scholars are in it for the money.<\/p>\n
Not so, says Harris Irfan, head of Islamic products at
\nBarclays Capital.<\/p>\n
“We’re not out fatwa shopping,” he said at the Reuters
\nIslamic Banking and Finance Summit. “We want to work with the
\nscholar who’s willing to say ‘no’ (to non-Sharia products)”<\/p>\n
A study\u00a0last year by\u00a0Funds at Work, a consultant for the
\nfund industry, looked at scholars’ engagement by financial firms
\nin the Gulf Arab region. It found the top 10 scholars hold about
\n46 percent of all available positions in the region.<\/p>\n
Internationally, excluding the Gulf, the top 10 scholars —
\nout of 70 active outside the region — hold 58 percent of board
\npositions.<\/p>\n
Scholars can earn up to $150,000 per project and it can take
\nfour to six months for a Sharia-compliant project to be
\ndeveloped. For the scholar, that can mean between four to six
\nweeks of work on a project.<\/p>\n
It may look cushy but often these same scholars will work
\nfor nothing to help develop standards for the industry.<\/p>\n
And, with an average 20 advisory board positions — which
\ncould require at least two meetings a year, typically requiring
\ntravel — the work stacks up.<\/p>\n
“At their age, that’s quite impressive,” Irfan says of the
\nscholars’ stamina.<\/p>\n
He said conflicting rulings can come from different scholars
\n— reinforcing the ‘fatwa shopping’ accusation — when
\ninstitutions are not upfront with the scholar about all the
\ndetails.<\/p>\n
“(One influential scholar) calls himself The Doctor,” Irfan
\nsaid. “He’ll say ‘if you come to the doctor with an ailment and
\nonly tell me one part, I can’t treat you. You have to tell me
\neverything’ and he’s right.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The limited number of Sharia scholars has meant the same group of men are on various advisory boards\u00a0which has\u00a0led to criticism that people can go “fatwa shopping” and that scholars are in it for the money. Not so, says Harris Irfan, head of Islamic products at Barclays Capital. “We’re not out fatwa shopping,” he said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-670041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2Oj7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768556,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670041\/revisions\/768556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}