Education will help ensure cohesion across the sector in all management tiers and at the Shariah level itself, writes David Williams

During the editing process of an article, I questioned the writer on his use of the term “second generation” of Islamic bankers to describe himself. “When was the first generation,” I asked. “In Sudan in the late 1950s to early 1960s? In Dubai in the 1970s with the rise of Dubai Islamic Bank? And—assuming a generation is 20 years—wouldn’t that make you either third or on the cusp of a fourth generation?”

It turned out that his reference was to Islamic bankers who graduated from universities with Islamic finance degrees or post-graduate Islamic vocational qualifications. This group, he asserted, is the second generation. The first generation is the group of bankers who crossed the trading floor from conventional to Islamic banking to take up employment and were provided with either bespoke training or learned their Shariah compliance on the job.

Our sector is poised to be reshaped from top to bottom by graduates from Far Eastern, Middle Eastern and Western universities. In the higher Shariah echelons, we have students such as Taha Abdul-Basser, enrolled in Harvard University’s Islamic Finance Project, forging a career as a Shariah adviser and benefiting with a groomed financial knowledge from the shortage of qualified scholars.

Mr Abdul-Basser, who works full-time as Harvard’s Muslim chaplain, sits on five international Shariah boards as a junior undergoing an informal apprenticeship with senior scholars and move up the ranks as their expertise grows. Ultimately, his reward as a chairman of a Shariah board could be, according to one report, US$50,000–$100,000 per board as a result of retainer fees, fees for issuing edicts, audit fees and documentation fees.

Nice work if you can get it.

At the entry level the second generation is already making its voice heard, and it will become more audible as graduates of Islamic finance schools start climbing the corporate ladder. In the UK, Aston Business School is one of the newest providers of Islamic financial education. The Birmingham school’s El Shaarani Centre for Islamic Finance and Business will conduct research as well as MSc and PhD programmes.

The 12-month MSc course will teach conventional and Islamic finance techniques, including the economic, financial and legal environment in which the Islamic financial services industry operates.

Education will ultimately raise standards as the pool of talent deepens, providing employers with highly qualified individuals well prepared to serve customers’ interests. It will be only a matter of time before the presence of the second generation is felt across all tiers of Islamic banking and finance.