Islamic Takaful: Has it successfully substituted conventional insurance?
Islamic Takaful: Has it successfully substituted conventional insurance?

Summary/Abstract: Islamic finance is a fast developing sector mainly present in the Middle East, South-East Asia, Central Asia and to a smaller extent in Africa and Central Europe. Together with the rebirth of Islam in the second half of the 20th century, Islamic finance tends to cover the economic needs of all Muslims (including insurances). The Islamic finance system is based on several principles including three main prohibitions: Gharar (deceptive uncertainty), Riba (usury) and Maysir (gambling). The concept of conventional insurance is based on rules that are contradictory to those principles and this poses a challenge for developing Islamic insurances. A comparative analysis approach was utilised to prove whether Takaful’s customers would receive at least equal value as the customers who would decide for the conventional insurance. As the success of this substitution the authors have taken the complementarity of Takaful’s deliverables and functions in comparison to the traditional insurance model. This study also aims to examine how the Islamic finance sector has responded to the growing demand for insurance products across Muslims, whilst remaining within the principles. The authors also attempt to examine the core differences between conventional insurance and its Islamic equivalent (Takaful). Apart from the research goals, the authors also want to popularize knowledge about alternative financial products. For the research secondary data were collected from books, articles and Internet resources such as Thomson Reuters’ databases. The authors have used literature studies and secondary research of both a qualitative and quantitative nature.

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