The steady development of products and the promotion of innovation are ways the Islamic Finance industry can achieve sustainability, notes Professor Luqman Zakariyyah, Head of the Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Federal University of Kashere, Gombe State. The observation was while discussing "Islamic Finance Product Development and Sustainable Financing."

Giving an overview of the market, Zakariyyah noted that product development was essential for the sustainable performance of the industry. "Products in Islamic finance in Nigeria such as Ijarah, Istisna, Murabaha, Mudarabah are the classic products the industry promotes". He said there were other ways of developing products as long as they were Sharia-compliant. "In Islamic finance, all transactions require permissibility," he observed. 

He cited an example of a conventional product like Build Operate and Transfer (BOT), which the Muslim community has used to build cooperative hostels across universities.  

According to him, the BOT conventional product was converted to an Islamic finance product by thorough scrutiny and removing the non-shariah compliant issues before adopting it for the Muslim community to build cooperative hostels. He said many conventional products, like the BOT, can be used and converted to Islamic finance products aligning with Shariah principles. 

On the jurisprudence aspect of Islamic finance product development, Zakariyyah said the principle in Islamic transaction from jurisprudence is that the origin should be permissible from the Quran or Hadiths, making it Halal. 

From a global perspective, he said Islamic finance can solve global challenges if looked at holistically. This was because it is embedded in the principle of shared risk, which addresses concerns around financial instability.

Considering the quality improvement of products and strategies to meet investment goals, the Islamic scholar pointed out that a robust quality assurance system that follows the standard operating procedures in Islamic finance was critical to the industry. The lecturer said that Islamic finance is about making money and contributing to society's stability through activities anchored on social responsibility.  

"The curriculum in Islamic Finance Studies should take care of neglected areas in the market. It must be reviewed and focused on research important for developing innovative products."

He encouraged Islamic financial institutions in Nigeria to leverage the human capital in the universities to sustain the industry. He believed the future of the African Islamic finance market is bright but needs more collaboration, noting the inclusion of the francophone-speaking countries in the region.

"We need to sensitize them and incorporate them, have different seminars, exhibitions, and training to project Islamic finance institutions as potential investment alternatives in Africa and globally. By doing these, Islamic finance would flourish."   

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