1. Muslim Community Credit Union Ltd
2. Muslim Community Co-Operative (Australia) Ltd
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
04 February 2007
AUSTRALIA: Background of Islamic banking industry
Source: Mirza, Malik and Halabi, Abdel (2003) Islamic Banking in Australia: Challenges and Opportunities. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 23(2):pp. 347-359.
Muslim Community in Australia
The history of the Muslim Community in Australia dates from the sixteenth century. Some of "Australia's" earliest visitors were in fact Muslim fishermen from the island of Makassar from the east Indonesian archipelago. It is thought that these fishermen had been visiting the north coast of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland from as early as the sixteenth century.
Muslims began to make an impact in Australia with the arrival of the hardworking Afghan cameleers in the mid nineteenth century. Cleland wrote "…without the Afghans the exploration of central Australia would have been impeded, the establishment of the inland telegraph would have been delayed and many inland mining towns would not have survived". Cleland also noted that by 1898 there were 300 members of the Muslim community in Coolgardie (Western Australia) and on the average eighty worshipers attended the Friday prayer.
The inland Afghan community gradually declined with the establishment of the railway system. The Muslim community generally also fell into major decline following the 1901 Immigration Act. This Act and the racially biased immigration policy stunted the growth of Afghan, Malay and Indian Muslim communities. By the 1920's the number of Muslims in Australia was rapidly declining, and by the Second World War there were very few left.
Large scale Muslim settlement in Australia began after World War II, with the subsequent economic boom. Albanians, Cypriots and mainland Turks, and Lebanese were welcomed in Australia as the need for labour increased. Later events in the Middle East and Europe, and the onset of political crisis such as the civil war in Lebanon, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Bosnian ethnic war created new waves of immigrants.
Today Australia's Muslims come from diverse social political and ethnic backgrounds. In 1991 there were 147,500 Muslims in Australia, in 1996 the number stood at 200,900. In 2001 (the last official census date), there were 281,578 Muslims representing 1.5% of the total population (up from 1.1% in 1996). Most of the Muslims (as of 1996) were born in Australia (36%), while others in Lebanon (13.5%), Turkey (11.1%), and still others in Indonesia, Bosnia, Iran, Fiji, Albania, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Malaysia. Approximately 37 ethnic backgrounds are represented in Australia. Indeed, the Muslim population in Australia has grown substantially in the last two decades, particularly due to immigration from South East Asia and the Middle East. Around 80% of Muslims arrived in Australia after 1980.
According to Bouma, Daw and Munwar, Islam has enjoyed a high rate of growth among religions in Australia since World War II. The number of Muslims increased from 0.01% of the population in 1947 to 1.5% in 2001, with nearly half of Australian Muslims living in either Sydney or Melbourne.
Australia is open to diversity in religious expression with over 72% of people identifying with some religious group according to the 2001 census (down from 74% in 1996). A persuasive counter argument exists that Australia is a secular society as 15.3% of the population state they practice "no religion" (also down from 16.5% in 1996). Bouma, Daw and Munwar note that "it is true that Australia has changed quite quickly into a society of religious and cultural diversity in a remarkably peaceful way". Muslims and others further extended the diversity in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
A religious minority has several options as it negotiates its relationship with the dominant society. Some withdraw into their own community; some look back home to the society they left behind, some criticise the new community, while some actively participate and integrate. Although some Muslims have turned inwards, the majority has sought and found a rightful place in the social and community life of Australia. Notice the following statement from Clyne: "Parents and Muslim communities … believe that while education in Islam is the responsibility of the home, learning to live within a society and being accepted by their peers in a conflict-free manner, is important for survival as Muslims in a non-Muslim country".
In contemporaneous terms, it is fair to say that the Muslim community is well established in Australia. The infrastructure of mosques, Muslim organizations such as The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, newspapers and Islamic schools is spread Australia wide. The unifying factor in the community is the shared religion of Islam, and this community reflects the cultural, linguistic and sectarian diversity of Islam, meaning that the community is culturally enriched. There are numerous organisations representing the interests of Muslims at the local or regional level. The peak Islamic authority in the Australian Muslim Community is the Federation of Islamic Councils, the Islamic Councils from states and territories being members of the Federation. The Islamic Councils are representative of the broader Muslim community and deal with issues of religious significance and act as lobby groups on issues affecting Muslim-Australians.
Islamic banking is a relatively new concept, and has grown enormously worldwide since the late 1960's. Today, Islamic banking has been adopted in more than 50 countries many of which are Western. In this paper we report on the performance and progress of a small but growing financial institution that meets the aspirations of the Muslim minority in Australia. It has been said time and again that a small organization is able to render services more efficiently than a large one. This appears to be equally true in the case of banking and financial institutions in the Australian context.
Interest-Free Banking in Australia
Today, the Muslim Community Credit Union Ltd (MCCU) and the Muslim Community Co-Operative (Australia) Ltd. (MCCA) cater to the financial and banking needs of Australia's Muslim minority community. The MCCA has been in operation for the last thirteen years. MCCU was established in 1999.
It was in response to the needs of a growing Muslim community, that MCCA was established (in February 1989), and became Australia's first financial service provider that operated on religious principles. A capital of $22,000 was initially contributed to begin the institution. The MCCA offered a limited range of halal financial services, and as the need for services grew, the MCCU was launched. Both service providers operate today and have specific financial roles in the Muslim community. The MCCA operates as a co-operative and specifically deals with investment accounts, where withdrawals are restricted. The services offered by MCCA are personal and business finance, halal investments, qard hassan and zakat collections and distributions. In its 1999 Annual Report, the MCCA wrote: "The Cooperative's operation is based on the principles and ideals of Islamic finance based on the undisputed Islamic references, namely the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah (the authentic traditions of Prophet Muhammad. Under Islamic law, riba may neither be earned nor paid". The MCCU operates primarily a retail banking service where accounts are serviced on a day-to-day basis.
By June 2000, the MCCA had 4,480 member investors, and in the financial year from 1 July 1999 to June 2000, the membership grew by 15%. In 1998/1999 the number of members had grown 35%. The Annual Report for 1999-2000 also stated that "there is declining trend in growth…due to the fact that the Co-operative is much focusing now on the growth of the MCCU, and prospective members are encouraged to become a member of the MCCU as it gives more flexibility".
There are two offices of the MCCU and MCCA which currently operate in Australia, one from Melbourne's northern suburbs, and the other in Lakemba, a suburb of Sydney, NSW. The locations of these offices are in Muslim populated areas.
Muslim Community in Australia
The history of the Muslim Community in Australia dates from the sixteenth century. Some of "Australia's" earliest visitors were in fact Muslim fishermen from the island of Makassar from the east Indonesian archipelago. It is thought that these fishermen had been visiting the north coast of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland from as early as the sixteenth century.
Muslims began to make an impact in Australia with the arrival of the hardworking Afghan cameleers in the mid nineteenth century. Cleland wrote "…without the Afghans the exploration of central Australia would have been impeded, the establishment of the inland telegraph would have been delayed and many inland mining towns would not have survived". Cleland also noted that by 1898 there were 300 members of the Muslim community in Coolgardie (Western Australia) and on the average eighty worshipers attended the Friday prayer.
The inland Afghan community gradually declined with the establishment of the railway system. The Muslim community generally also fell into major decline following the 1901 Immigration Act. This Act and the racially biased immigration policy stunted the growth of Afghan, Malay and Indian Muslim communities. By the 1920's the number of Muslims in Australia was rapidly declining, and by the Second World War there were very few left.
Large scale Muslim settlement in Australia began after World War II, with the subsequent economic boom. Albanians, Cypriots and mainland Turks, and Lebanese were welcomed in Australia as the need for labour increased. Later events in the Middle East and Europe, and the onset of political crisis such as the civil war in Lebanon, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Bosnian ethnic war created new waves of immigrants.
Today Australia's Muslims come from diverse social political and ethnic backgrounds. In 1991 there were 147,500 Muslims in Australia, in 1996 the number stood at 200,900. In 2001 (the last official census date), there were 281,578 Muslims representing 1.5% of the total population (up from 1.1% in 1996). Most of the Muslims (as of 1996) were born in Australia (36%), while others in Lebanon (13.5%), Turkey (11.1%), and still others in Indonesia, Bosnia, Iran, Fiji, Albania, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Malaysia. Approximately 37 ethnic backgrounds are represented in Australia. Indeed, the Muslim population in Australia has grown substantially in the last two decades, particularly due to immigration from South East Asia and the Middle East. Around 80% of Muslims arrived in Australia after 1980.
According to Bouma, Daw and Munwar, Islam has enjoyed a high rate of growth among religions in Australia since World War II. The number of Muslims increased from 0.01% of the population in 1947 to 1.5% in 2001, with nearly half of Australian Muslims living in either Sydney or Melbourne.
Australia is open to diversity in religious expression with over 72% of people identifying with some religious group according to the 2001 census (down from 74% in 1996). A persuasive counter argument exists that Australia is a secular society as 15.3% of the population state they practice "no religion" (also down from 16.5% in 1996). Bouma, Daw and Munwar note that "it is true that Australia has changed quite quickly into a society of religious and cultural diversity in a remarkably peaceful way". Muslims and others further extended the diversity in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
A religious minority has several options as it negotiates its relationship with the dominant society. Some withdraw into their own community; some look back home to the society they left behind, some criticise the new community, while some actively participate and integrate. Although some Muslims have turned inwards, the majority has sought and found a rightful place in the social and community life of Australia. Notice the following statement from Clyne: "Parents and Muslim communities … believe that while education in Islam is the responsibility of the home, learning to live within a society and being accepted by their peers in a conflict-free manner, is important for survival as Muslims in a non-Muslim country".
In contemporaneous terms, it is fair to say that the Muslim community is well established in Australia. The infrastructure of mosques, Muslim organizations such as The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, newspapers and Islamic schools is spread Australia wide. The unifying factor in the community is the shared religion of Islam, and this community reflects the cultural, linguistic and sectarian diversity of Islam, meaning that the community is culturally enriched. There are numerous organisations representing the interests of Muslims at the local or regional level. The peak Islamic authority in the Australian Muslim Community is the Federation of Islamic Councils, the Islamic Councils from states and territories being members of the Federation. The Islamic Councils are representative of the broader Muslim community and deal with issues of religious significance and act as lobby groups on issues affecting Muslim-Australians.
Islamic banking is a relatively new concept, and has grown enormously worldwide since the late 1960's. Today, Islamic banking has been adopted in more than 50 countries many of which are Western. In this paper we report on the performance and progress of a small but growing financial institution that meets the aspirations of the Muslim minority in Australia. It has been said time and again that a small organization is able to render services more efficiently than a large one. This appears to be equally true in the case of banking and financial institutions in the Australian context.
Interest-Free Banking in Australia
Today, the Muslim Community Credit Union Ltd (MCCU) and the Muslim Community Co-Operative (Australia) Ltd. (MCCA) cater to the financial and banking needs of Australia's Muslim minority community. The MCCA has been in operation for the last thirteen years. MCCU was established in 1999.
It was in response to the needs of a growing Muslim community, that MCCA was established (in February 1989), and became Australia's first financial service provider that operated on religious principles. A capital of $22,000 was initially contributed to begin the institution. The MCCA offered a limited range of halal financial services, and as the need for services grew, the MCCU was launched. Both service providers operate today and have specific financial roles in the Muslim community. The MCCA operates as a co-operative and specifically deals with investment accounts, where withdrawals are restricted. The services offered by MCCA are personal and business finance, halal investments, qard hassan and zakat collections and distributions. In its 1999 Annual Report, the MCCA wrote: "The Cooperative's operation is based on the principles and ideals of Islamic finance based on the undisputed Islamic references, namely the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah (the authentic traditions of Prophet Muhammad. Under Islamic law, riba may neither be earned nor paid". The MCCU operates primarily a retail banking service where accounts are serviced on a day-to-day basis.
By June 2000, the MCCA had 4,480 member investors, and in the financial year from 1 July 1999 to June 2000, the membership grew by 15%. In 1998/1999 the number of members had grown 35%. The Annual Report for 1999-2000 also stated that "there is declining trend in growth…due to the fact that the Co-operative is much focusing now on the growth of the MCCU, and prospective members are encouraged to become a member of the MCCU as it gives more flexibility".
There are two offices of the MCCU and MCCA which currently operate in Australia, one from Melbourne's northern suburbs, and the other in Lakemba, a suburb of Sydney, NSW. The locations of these offices are in Muslim populated areas.
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