Islamic Banking and its Legal Validity in India

Abstract

Islamic banking is an emerging model of banking which is currently practiced in several countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and United Kingdom. The most intriguing aspect of Islamic banking is that it works on a purely no interest basis. Given the fact that India is a country with one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, the researchers believe it is important to understand the public awareness, acceptability and feasibility of introducing this system of banking in India. This paper primarily aims at discussing the legal viability of introducing Islamic banking in India, taking into account the current legal regime. In analyzing how forthcoming the population will be towards this banking system, a sample of the population was chosen from Pune and New Delhi and surveyed with the help of a questionnaire, leading to the inference that most people are open to the concept of interest free banking but are unwilling to accept the Islamic ideology it is derived from.