Islamic Financial Institutions in the Global Financial architecture. Kochmola K. V.-Rostov-on-Don: RSEU Publishing House, 2008, 368 p.

Despite the absence of a stable demand for Islamic financial products in modern Russia, the interest of domestic researchers in them is growing every day. Over the past ten years, all monographs devoted to Islamic economics and finance have been published exclusively in Moscow: "Insurance in Muslim Law: Theory and Practice" by Renat Bekkin (2001)," Theory and Practice of Islamic Banking "by Andrey Zhuravlev (2002)," Islamic Banks in Islamic Financial Law " by Vladimir Pavlov (2003), collection " Islamic finance in the modern world: economic and legal aspects "(2004). As a matter of fact, the range of special studies on Islamic economics is currently limited to the above-mentioned works.

The focus of interest on such a topic as the Islamic economy is understandable in Moscow. It is in the capital that the largest number of Oriental studies universities and faculties specializing in the study of topical issues of development in the countries of the East is located. But this year Moscow's monopoly on conducting comprehensive research on the Islamic economy was broken. The textbook "Islamic Financial Institutions in the Global Financial Architecture"was published in Rostov-on-Don. The publication of the textbook is certainly a landmark event for the Islamic economy in Russia: it once again confirms that the Muslim economy is an objective phenomenon of the world economy, which requires careful study even where there are no Islamic banks and other financial institutions.

While evaluating the significance of the study, it is impossible not to pay attention to some of its obvious shortcomings. As you know, the cover of a book is her face. Unfortunately, the cover of the textbook and its first pages raise a number of questions. If the title page indicates that the textbook was edited by Professor K. V. Kochmola, then on the spine of the book the textbook editor suddenly becomes its sole author. The title page lists 2008 as the publication date of the textbook, while the abstract lists 2007.

The editor's shortcomings are evident throughout the entire text of the textbook. Obviously, in order to avoid numerous blunders directly related to the subject of research, it was necessary to involve an editor or consultant - a specialist in Islamic issues. For example, the same Andrei Zhuravlev, whom one of the authors of the textbook either jokingly or seriously attributed to the number of Islamic scholars (p. 138).

Most of the authors of the textbook are teachers of Rostov State University of Economics, who are neither specialists in the economics of the Muslim East, nor professional Islamic scholars. This affected their work. Instead of referring to authoritative reference publications on Islam, the authors of the textbook resorted to the compilation book " Islam "(comp. V. V. Yurchuk). As a result, the work is full of annoying inaccuracies. Listing all the shortcomings of the textbook would take up a lot of space, so we will limit ourselves to just a few of them.

It is not entirely clear what the authors mean by "Islamic state". Even if it is incorrect to use the term "Islamic state" as a synonym for a Muslim country, then in any case, states such as secular Turkey and the Philippines cannot be considered as Islamic even with such a reservation.

Ignorance of the basic realities of the Muslim world leads to claims that the emir, not the king, is in power in Qatar (p. 47), and in the UK, the majority of immigrants from the Muslim world are Arabs, not South Asians (p.47).

The lack of basic knowledge about Islam among the authors of the textbook is manifested in the distortion of the spelling and transmission of the essence of terms of Arabic or Persian origin. So, for some reason, Muslim law (fiqh) is written by one of the authors of the textbook as "fight" (p. 134). In general, the transfer of Arabic terms in English in parentheses in the textbook after the corresponding term in Russian is clearly unnecessary work.

However, the presence of a number of inaccuracies did not prevent the authors from correctly and objectively examining the essence of various institutions of the Islamic economy, revealing the features of their functioning in the context of globalization. The textbook's analysis serves as a good foundation for its authors to conduct further research in the field of Islamic finance. As you know, the right methodological approach is already half the success. But the little things also matter.

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