Islamic Business and Finance Series

<p>The phenomenal growth of Islamic finance in the last few decades has been accompanied by a host of interesting questions and challenges. One of the critical challenges is how Islamic financial institutions can be motivated to participate in the ''equity-like'' profit-and-loss sharing (PLS) contracts. It is observed that Islamic banks are reluctant to participate in the pure PLS scheme which is manifested by the rising concentration of investment on <i>murabaha</i> or mark-up financing. This phenomenon has been the hotbed of academic criticism on the contemporary practice of Islamic banking. This book explains the ''<i>murabaha</i> syndrome'' in light of the incentive provided by the current institutional framework and what are the changes required in the governance structure to mend this anomaly.</p>