In Bahrain we saw the total assets of the Islamic banks jump from $ billion in the year 2000 to $ billion by the end of the decade. The market share of Islamic banks increased from 1.8% of total banking assets to over 11% in June 2009.
The story of the Sharia compliant insurance and asset management sectors was a similar one of strong growth. This pattern was repeated other financial centres with a significant presence of Islamic financial institutions. In the early days of the crisis there was a widespread assumption that Islamic finance would continue this strong growth into the future.