Three Organizations Team Up to Launch Islamic Finance Training Program for American Imams

The American Islamic Finance Project ("AIF") was launched today as a collaborative effort between the Islamic Society of North America ("ISNA"), Ethica Institute of Islamic Finance ("Ethica") and Guidance Residential to provide the first-ever Islamic finance training to over 100 American imams.

The role of AIF is to raise the level of knowledge and understanding of Islamic financial transaction law under the belief that financial markets can benefit significantly from the ethical and moral guidelines that Islam's financial concepts provide.

The landmark training progra;, which is to be held from May 2 to May 5 in Berkeley, California, is designed exclusively for imams serving communities in the United States. Muslim communities across America are increasingly considering Islamic finance as a legitimate option for their personal investment strategies and in doing so they are turning to their imams for direction, making this training more important than ever.

The opening ceremony, being held at 5pm on May 2nd, will feature a broad discussion by invited keynote presenters such as Shaykh Nizam Yaqub, a renowned Islamic finance scholar, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, founder of Zaytuna College, and Imam Mohammed Maged, President of ISNA. The bulk of the training will be led by Atif Khan, Managing Director at Ethica, who will conduct two full days of intensive training about the principles of Islamic financial transactions.

Ethica is a training, certification, and advisory institute based in Dubai. It is the leading Islamic finance training institute in the world, with thousands of students in more than 20 countries and over 100 institutions, including some of the world’s leading banks and universities.

The sole underwriter of this event is Guidance Financial Group, who made this training possible for all participating imams to increase their knowledge of Islamic finance without incurring any expenses.