Financial Intermediation from Shariah Perspective A Maqasidi Approach

Abstract

Financial intermediation is the core of banking business, as its role is to mediate between the owners of surplus funds and those in need of finance, sharing the generated profit with the funds’ owners. However, financial intermediation does involve some economic risks in terms of concentration of debt in financial institutions and the possibility of the inability of the financed clients to repay their debts. When this happens, financial crises are inevitable, as occurred in the last financial crisis in 2008. Islamic finance does not differ in this regard from its traditional counterparts, because the concentration of debts also holds on the concept of Islamic institutional finance, and the possibility of collective default is possible herein if no sufficient protective measures are taken by legislators to prevent this possibility. The study treats the issue of financial intermediation and its risks from Maqasidi aspect using home finance as a point of comparison between conventional home finance with Islamic home finance in terms of their economic effects. The study eventually proposes a model for home financing that is free of these cautions.