1 Future of IFI’s in Australia: Remonstrance and Squeaks ___________________________________ Fahad Ahmed Qureshi University of Management and Technology Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 2, (May 2015), pp. 347-359. Introduction Muslims are one of the many minorities in Australia. In this paper, we report on Muslim community's reasons for discomfort with the use of the Western financial system and describe the alternative to it that has come to be known as "Islamic banking". One of the major differences between the Western and the Islamic financial systems is the use of interest ( riba) which is the very foundation of the Western financial system but prohibited under the Islamic rulings governing permissible financial transactions. In this paper, we will describe the activities and operations of the Islamic financial institutions and discuss why riba-free banking is likely to flourish in Australia in the future. Muslim Community in Australia The history of the Muslim Community in Australia dates from the sixteenth century. Some of "Australia's" earliest visitors were in fact Muslim anglers from the island of Makassar from the east Indonesian archipelago. 1 It is thought that these fishermen had been visiting the north coast of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland from as early as the sixteenth century. Muslims began to make an impact in Australia with the arrival of the hardworking Afghan cameleers in the mid nineteenth century. Cleland wrote "…without the Afghans the exploration of central Australia would have been impeded, the establishment of the inland telegraph would have been delayed and many inland mining towns would not have survived". 2 Cleland also noted that by 1898 there were 300 members of the Muslim community in Coolgardie (Western Australia) and on the average eighty worshipers attended the Friday prayer. 3 The inland Afghan community gradually declined with the establishment of the railway system. The Muslim community generally also fell into major decline following the 1901 Immigration Act. This Act and the racially biased immigration policy stunted the growth of Afghan, Malay and Indian Muslim communities. By the 1920's the number of Muslims in Australia was rapidly declining, and by the Second World War there were very few left. 4 Large scale Muslim settlement in Australia began after World War II, with the subsequent economic boom. Albanians, Cypriots and mainland Turks, and Lebanese were welcomed in Australia as the need for labour increased. Later events in the Middle East and Europe, and the onset of political crisis such as the civil war in Lebanon, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Bosnian ethnic war created new waves of immigrants. 5