Origin and Development of Commercial and Islamic Banking Operations

Banking is often considered by most economists as a modern device of recent origin (12th Century AD Italy), but a glance, at the origin and development of financial operations throughout history, will dispel the notion of novelty as we can see from this paper. The purpose of this paper is: · Firstly, to show that banking operations were practised by almost all known early civilizations, long before 12 th Century AD Italy; · Secondly, to prove that Islam not only allowed but encouraged such operations on a scale which surpassed anything known before; · Thirdly, to show that the Italians bankers learnt these operations from the Muslim, Christian and Jewish traders of the Muslim world with whom they had long and strong commercial relationships between the 10 th and 12th centuries AD; and · Finally, to trace the origin and development of what is known nowadays as 'Islamic banking'.