not carry the weight of an official civil marriage certificate issued by
the municipality involved. After searching my heart, I concluded that we
should use the civil marriage contract. We concluded that what makes a
marriage Jewish, Catholic, Methodist, Protestant, or Islamic is not only the
religious vows and the signature of the religious leader. What makes it any
of these things is what the parties do at the time of dispute. The couple can
go to the religious leader (e.g., the rabbi, priest, or imam) to preside over an
arbitration process that is conducted according to the tenets of the faith, and
that will make it religious. Or they can go to a civil court and that will make
it civil. After this experience, which deeply touched us all, we recommended
to all Islamic Centers in the United States and Canada that no imam or certi-
fied community leader be allowed to perform a wedding without a civil mar-
riage certificate, in order to protect each party. This ruling stands today.
Our team at LARIBA reflected on this experience when we started look-
ing for ways to bring RF banking to America, in order to solve the puzzle
and optimize the process of merging the many currents and players in the
field. We were concerned and troubled by the standard approach used by
many ‘‘Islamic’’ bankers who were interestedinestablishinganIslamic
bank in the West. It is sincerely hoped that this frank discussion will not
offend any of the wonderful, well-intentioned, and believing Islamic bank-
ers in the world—Muslims and non-Muslims—who want to use this ap-
proach. The standard approach used starts by requiring local authorities in
other non-Muslim countries to change their laws, regulations, and proce-
dures to fit the requirements of the Shari’aa Board of those banks. Your au-
thor was privileged to have been exposed to many of the detailed
discussions that led the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA) to license
an Islamic bank (The Islamic Bank of Britain, IBB). The legal costs in-
volved, the compromises arrived at, and the monetary guarantees offered
could only be done by a very rich entity that could afford it and would be
capable of providing the guarantee from the central bank of the country in-
volved. We respectfully ask those who use this approach to reverse roles.
Imagine that a bank in the United Kingdom comes to a Muslim country,
presents itself as a Christian bank, and calls itself ‘‘The Christian Bank of
Country X’’—and demands that the laws of the Muslim land be changed in
order to transfer large sums of money and open that bank. It does not re-
quire much imagination to project the reaction of the country. It is wished
that this attitude will be changed, because it may be temporarily accepted
by some non-Muslim countries’ officials to achieve a short-term goal, like
securing ‘‘Islamic’’ funds for an ‘‘Islamic’’ bond (Sukuk) in a European city.
Alternately, it will be accepted from those who happen to have the funds to
spend today, but after the funds dry up then there will be no more guaran-
tees and the license is withdrawn or the special conditions are removed. It is
246 THE ART OF ISLAMIC BANKING AND FINANCE