Today, compared with the traditional insurance, takaful has achieved remarkable growth and development in the Islamic countries. Some of the major aspects of takaful including shared capital, shared liability, and shared benefit make it more competitive with the conventional insurances. Given the significance of this subject, a research report titled “Jurisprudent Examination of Takaful” has been prepared by Seyeed Abbas Husseini and Fatemeh Azadbakht at the Islamic Insurance Studies Research Group, IRC.

According to the findings of the report, the various aspects of takaful as a neologism in the jurisprudence literature require more study and further examination. Although their legitimacy and the jurisprudents’ response to such novel affairs is a significant issue per se, the jurisprudents generally treat takaful in two ways: first, examination of takaful in the realms of legitimate and agreed contracts based on the Shariah; and second, examination of the takaful as an independent contract that intellectuals address it. Although the present research report advocates the second stance, in order to fully implement takaful in Iran, the fundamentals and relevant issues based on the second line of discussions are also thoroughly studied, examined, and presented.

Given the fact that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the legitimacy of commercial insurances has been accepted by the Islamic jurisprudents, the takaful can be fully operational in line with the current conventional insurance practices in a healthy and competitive environment. However, it seems that the nature of the investment fund in takaful systems is a competitive advantage that can attract investors. Further, in a takaful system, the participants have the right to vote in the general assembly of the takaful company and a takaful certificate can be surrendered before maturity without any penalty charges.

According to the present report, the major presumption of the research i.e. the acceptability of takaful either as a legitimate and agreed contract or an independent contract by the jurisprudents of various Islamic sects is already proven and there is no fundamental problem with it. However, unawareness and lack of information about takaful and its underdevelopment in the Islamic financial markets are some of the major challenges facing takaful operations.

Those interested to access and download the Persian full text of the aforementioned research report, please pay a visit to https://www.irc.ac.ir/fa-IR/Irc/4946/Articles/view/14643/1588.