Islamic Banking: Regulatory Background from the Czech Perspective

The term “Islamic banking” denotes the banking services in compliance with Islamic law and is nowadays a rapidly expanding, global industry based on a traditional fourteen centuries old legal system. The European market is witnessing growing Shari’acompliant assets especially in the last few years and even non-Muslim countries have been trying to find legal solutions to accomodate Islamic financial institutions. This new academic and business field is raising important issues that merit discussion and this text serves as a contribution to the debate. In the paper I am trying to depict the key and distinguishing features of the Islamic banking model and reflect its law regulation from the point of view of the Czech legislation in the light of the continuing growth and expansion of Islamic banking and finance. The main objective of this article is to find out whether the legal framework of the Czech Republic covers the practice of Islamic finance and also to consider and identify potential legal obstacles.