An esham-ijara structure in the United States?

The purpose of this paper is to explore Islamic borrowing at the local level in redevelopment authorities in the USA through an ijara and esham framework.

A hypothetical example is approached with a real redevelopment authority in the City of Pompano Beach, Florida. Actual data from past borrowing in a tax increment financing district are compared to an Islamic financing approach to test for competitiveness to a conventional approach.

It was found that when incorporating a crowdsourced option along with an ijara and esham approach, the returns on investment are higher than for a conventional approach. The risk is higher, but the returns are also higher which possibly increases the incentive to invest in these options.

This scenario is only hypothetical and based on many assumptions. A real-world application of the approach would have to be attempted to confidently determine its viability.

The potential competitiveness of this financing approach as well as its higher sustainability makes this a favorable approach for local redevelopment authorities to implement for needed money for infrastructure projects in blighted areas of the city. It is also of interest to Muslim countries that are devolving authority to their local governments.

This paper considers an alternative approach to tax increment financing which relies on a revenue sharing arrangement called an esham–ijara and esham–sukuk risk-sharing structure in Islamic financing terminology. There is currently very little discussion of esham in Islamic finance and no discussion of the application of Islamic finance to local economic development enterprises.