In Islamic Law (the Charia), it is not possible to pay a fixed interest rate, called “Riba”, as a return on capital. In fact, money should not "work" on its own but nothing in the Charia prohibits the remuneration of goods purchased thanks to the capital lent. The principle behind the many prohibitions regarding money lending in Islamic law is that money has no intrinsic value in itself, only human labor should be rewarded. Islamic financial contracts are designed to facilitate financing according to Islamic standards. Islamic finance appeared in the early 1960s with the aim of developing Sharia-compliant alternative financial contracts. Before the 1960s, Islamic finance existed but without solid institutions it could not be spent. The creation of the first Islamic social bank, Mit Ghamr Islamic Bank in Egypt in 1963, and the first Islamic commercial bank, Dubai Islamic Bank in 1975, created this problem. This financing system remained quite unknown until a few years ago, when the risks taken in classical global finance led to a global crisis. In a first part we will study why Islamic finance is really different from classical finance, then why it could be an alternative to classical finance, and finally we will see that this financing model is not a panacea for all the problems of our current financial system.I ) How is Islamic finance so different from current global finance? Sociologists agree that the process of modernization of society is due to the separation of the different spheres (economic, artistic, legal...) from religion. This process called secularization is the foundation of our society: “saeculum” in Latin means “century” and what I…… middle of paper…… finance will not surpass the current model but will only be a part of it. In fact, classical finance has a great propensity to consider alternative models as a niche market. Islamic finance is still young and much experimentation and research will be needed before it can play an important role in global finance. The risk is that Islamic finance, as it develops, loses some of its ethical principles. Indeed, even if gambling is theoretically prohibited by Sharia, one can always build a system by avoiding the rule, as is actually the case with the Salam contract: a short-term contract permitted by Sharia, in which the seller makes a profit from a decrease in the value of the asset. Works Cited: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest.