Politics and law weigh on Islamic finance in India

Islamic finance in India is strongly limited by the country's ban on sharia-compliant banking. However, the industry intends to create a work-around by developing specific products that can take this function. Due to the political and legal obstacles any progress is expected to be rather slow. Meanwhile, 177 million Muslims in India, which constitute the world's largest Muslim minority population, have no access to Islamic banking since laws covering the sector require banking to be based on interest, which is not allowed in Islam.