IslamicFinance.de

India's Ministry of Minority Affairs has enlisted a Kuala Lumpur-based body to help develop Islamic endowments, or awqaf, aiming to mobilise a large pool of assets in the country. India, with an estimated 177 million Muslims, has a large base of awqaf but many of their assets are far from being employed efficiently; their estimated annual income is just 1.63 billion rupees. Last month, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the National Wakaf Development Corporation, to help management of the properties become more transparent. Efforts to strengthen India's awqaf could conceivably be a precursor to developing an Islamic banking sector in the country. However, its secular laws still largely forbid the selling of sharia-compliant banking.