Shared Risk & Reward (formerly known as the Sharing Risk Newsletter)

I have been writing the Sharing Risk Newsletter now since May 2010 (and the blog since September 2006).  It has been, and will continue to be, an email newsletter (which you can sign up for on the right hand side of my blog under "Weekly Newsletter"), although I have started to put the archives up on my website, www.sharingrisk.org.  The newsletter was originally created because I received an email from blog readers who wanted a way to receive the blog posts by email (which is now automated; you can also sign up on the right hand side of the blog under "Subscribe via email").  When I started it, I added an additional bit of commentary (an archive of which I am adding to my website). 

Despite having now sent out 87 issues of the newsletter, I have not yet had the time to come up with a name for the newsletter.  The 87th issue changes this.  I'm still working on formatting (please send me suggestions at blake@sharingrisk.org) but I have decided on a title: "Shared Risk & Reward". 

Shared Risk & Reward originated from the name of the blog and website (Sharing Risk), but added Reward because Islamic finance exists to make a profit, and recognizes that making a profit entails taking a risk.  The focus of the newsletter has been, and I hope will continue to be, finding ways where Islamic finance can continue to recognize the intimate connection between risk and reward in finance, and its connection with the underlying economic activity that finance is meant to support.  I also believe that the newsletter and the blog should call out Islamic finance when it emulates Icarus and flies too close to conventional finance's sun, melting the wax that holds its feathers together. 

For those readers who are not already subscribers, I have put the latest version of the newsletter up as a pdf.  I will continue to put up back issues on my website with about a month's lag, but if you want to get the latest updates on developments in Islamic finance you should subscribe to the newsletter.  It will also include the previous week's blog posts if you miss any.  It typically comes out Sunday evening US time, which gives me a little breathing room to take in the previous week's news as well as think more about the previous week's posts to give a refreshing complement to the blog.  And, it's free.