IslamicFinance.de

The senior management of Sohar Islamic held its first Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) meeting, chaired by Dr. Hussain Hamed Hassan, and attended by the other SSB members. The SSB of Sohar Islamic comprises of leading Islamic scholars from Islamic finance and academic sectors from across the world. During the course of the meeting, the SSB considered and approved product structures, contracts and policies in order to generate a workable strategy for a range of Islamic Banking products and services that Bank Sohar will soon offer. The SSB members commended Bank Sohar for addressing the need for Islamic banking and for their diligence in assuring Shariah compliance in all products.

Goldman Sachs International announced last September that it was going to the market to raise financing totaling $2 billion through a Murabaha sukuk issuance.
The issuance is based on a structure accepted by Dar Al-Istithmar Limited, the Shariah adviser to the issuer, Global Sukuk Company Limited, whose Shariah Supervisory Board is chaired by Hussain Hamed Hassan and includes Ali Al-Qaradaghi, Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah, Abdulaziz Fawzan Saleh Al-Fawzan and Aznan Hasan.
The issuance would have passed as a routine Murabaha sukuk save that the issuer was doing it on behalf of arguably the most high profile investment bank in the world, Goldman Sachs.

Gulf Arab states is planing to have a single Shariah board for the region’s Islamic financial institutions in five to 10 years. A “supreme Shariah council” will help reduce the cost of issuing sukuk and boost Islamic services offered by financial institutions that comply with the religion’s ban on interest.
Hussain Hamed Hassan, head of Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC (DIB)’s Shariah committee, criticized central banks for treating Shariah- compliant financial institutions as if they were non-Islamic companies. He added that only a few central banks were exceptions, including those in Bahrain and Sudan.