Many Muslims are insecure whether it is allowed to invest in the stock market or not. Basically it is permissible. Buying shares of a company means that investors are becoming shareholders and therefore share business-risks equally.But in either case the companies strictly have to comply with Shariah-principles.

The second quarter shows signs of an obvious dampening effect on the performance of the Shariah-compliant financing institutions that are related to the real estate industry.

John Paulson - a New York hedge fund manager - made an estimated 3.7 bn US$ betting on the subprime crisis. He believed in a falling market at a time when nobody did. Now John Paulson bets on the recovery of the real estate market. Reason enough to check this out.

Real estate is one of the most popular investments in the Muslim world. First of all real estate - especially residential - is an asset class, which complies easily with the Shariah law. Moreover usually real estate gives a solid and stable return to its investors.

The Takaful or the Islamic insurance industry has just begun its journey on the path of proliferating growth as it still hasn't tapped the full potential of the investors across the world.