Bay Al-tawarruq Application In Malaysian Islamic Bank: A Critical Assessment

This paper aims to review the application of bay’ al-tawwaruq contract in offering Islamic banking products and services. The review evaluates to what extent bay’ al-tawarruq contract able to fulfil the maqasid (objectives) of Shariah (Islamic law). Two RHB Islamic bank's products (personal financing and deposit), which adopted bay’ al-tawarruq contract were critically studied. The product structures were analysed and compared with the bay' al-inah based product structure. The adoption of bay’ al-tawarruq contract in creating Islamic personal financing and deposit products comply with Shariah principle. The product structure and the operational process did not trigger any Shariah issue. However, in terms of fulfilling the maqasid of Shariah, the paper find out that the application of bay’ al-tawarruq is not significantly different from bay’ al-inah based products. Thus, despite the shift from bay’ al-inah to bay’ al-tawwaruq implemented by most of the Malaysian Islamic banks, criticism regarding how 'Islamic' is Islamic banking remains to be debated. Islamic banking products studied in this paper were limited to RHB Islamic bank of Malaysia only. Hence, the paper is not intended to represent the local Islamic banking industry as a whole. The paper offers Shariah assessment on Islamic banking products that adopt bay’ al-tawarruq contract as their underlying principle. It also provides a valuable addition to the discussion of maqasid (objectives) of Shariah in the Islamic finance industry.