Imam Suhaib Webb published an article on the Credit Crunch, and the possibility of  Islamic finance as an alternative by Andrew Booso.

Now I do not doubt that a Galbraithian approach to capitalism – as argued by Stephen Dunn in the Guardian comment pages on 15 October 2008 – would have largely averted the current disaster, by God’s will. However, I would contend that the nature of the beast dictates that the values of Galbraith will, on most occasions, be overthrown by the greed factor inherent in the essential make-up. Thus when Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Britain, wants to invoke for the markets the ‘values’ that it cannot generate itself, but which are values of ‘fairness, stewardship [and] cooperation’ derived from those ‘learned in families, neighbourhoods and communities and developed in the relationships we enjoy as a society’ (Telegraph online, 18 October 2008) – then we must question whether our knowledge of these factors supports the notion of capitalism now being refined for the better. Or is this just another of the endless cycles – as outlined by Dunn – that capitalism thrusts upon us from time to time, and we are simply required to bear?

Unsurprisingly, some Islamic-minded economists have set out a more just and stable method of banking within the current system. Nevertheless, the conventional banking system has largely ignored such proposals for numerous reasons, unless it means a piecemeal development of a limited number of products that allow the main actors to gain the wealth of Muslims. The nature of such a scenario means that the tail is truly only ever wagged by the dog, as dictated by the dog.