Halal Money: Islamic Finance, Economic Exclusion and Homeownership in Scandinavia

The Paper builds on research using quantitative and qualitative methods in Norway and Denmark about attitudes to Islamic and to conventional finance among Muslims. I present basic findings about such attitudes about the religious ban on interest among Muslims in these countries and comment briefly on the ideological background to specifically Islamic financial discourses in the modern world. The main focus of the paper, however, is about the extent to which avoidance of conventional financial services results in a lower degree of homeownership and consequently to economic exclusion among Muslims. If it is the case that religion is a barrier to economic inclusion of a section of the immigrant population in Scandinavia, as my research suggests, this issue needs to be raised and possible solutions need to be discussed. The Paper sums up by presenting the impact of this research on the financial sector, on political discourse and in Muslims communities.