As Islamic banks boom, scholars are hard to find

The green-fronted Kuwait Finance House Auto mall on Bahrain's main showroom highway is a bank that sells cars.

Here, the motorist can pick the model that takes his fancy and, at the same time, fix up the Islamic financing and Islamic insurance to buy it - a sign of the rate at which Islamic banking is growing.

Opened in June last year to meet rising demand in the oil-rich Gulf archipelago, the bank offers murabaha-based purchase plans, a method of Islamic financing that lets customers buy automobiles without taking an interest-based loan.