Takaful (Arabic: التكافل) is an Islamic insurance concept which is grounded in Islamic muamalat (Islamic banking), observing the rules and regulations of Islamic law. This concept has been practised in various forms since 622 CE. Muslim jurists acknowledge that the basis of shared responsibility (in the system of aquila as practised between Muslims of Mecca and Medina) laid the foundation of mutual insurance.

These fundamentals are based on the sayings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Based on the hadith and Qur'anic verses mentioned below, Islamic scholars have decided that there should be a concerted effort to implement the concept of takaful as the best way to resolve these needs. Some examples are:

The principles of takaful are as follows:

Theoretically, takaful is perceived as cooperative or mutual insurance, where members contribute a certain sum of money to a common pool. The purpose of this system is not profits, but to uphold the principle of "bear ye one another's burden". Commercial insurance is strictly disallowed for Muslims (as agreed upon by most contemporary scholars) because it contains the following elements:

Iqbal Asaria is special advisor to the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain on business and economic affairs and a tutor on the MCB's leadership development programme. An economist, he was a member of the working party set up by the Governor of The Bank of England to look into issues relating to Islamic housing and finance products in the UK. He is an associate of the Islamic Banking and Finance Institute of Malaysia and member of the City of London's Financial Markets Law Committee. He has spoken at several conferences and symposia on Islamic banking and finance. He was awarded the CBE in the 2005 Queen's Honours List for services to international development.^{[citation needed]} In the late 1980s, he was the editor-in-chief of Afkar, a ground-breaking news and analysis journal published in London.^{[citation needed]}

He is a key^{[citation needed]} member of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) holding various roles including:

He is also a leading^{[citation needed]} figure in Islamic finance: a regular speaker at conferences, seminars and training workshops and the author of several articles on Islamic finance. Advisory roles have included: