Thanks to the surge in Middle East oil wealth, Islam-friendly banking is one of the fastest-growing areas of finance, expected to reach $1 trillion by 2009. To help deals proceed smoothly, blue-chip firms are hiring clerics for advice on Shariah, or Islamic law. The cost of retaining a scholar versed in finance and ancient jurisprudence: $20,000 to $40,000 a year.

Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo
United States
Attended: Cornell University
Advises: Dow Jones, Shariah Capital
A Massachusetts-born convert to Islam, DeLorenzo works closely with Shariah Capital, a tech and consulting group based in Connecticut. One recent project: an Islamic trading platform for hedge funds that mimics short sales. It relies on an arboon, a transaction involving a down payment, to address the Koran’s prohibition against selling what you don’t own. Hedge fund GRT Capital has signed up; Barclays Capital will process trades.

Mohamed Ali Elgari
Saudi Arabia
Attended: University of California
Advises: A.I.G. Takaful, HSBC Amanah, Citi Islamic Investment Bank
Elgari, perhaps the most renowned Islamic-finance scholar in Saudi Arabia, has advised on large infrastructure projects in the kingdom, including $1 billion in Islamic financing for Al Waha Petrochemical Co. last fall. Flush with oil revenue, the Saudi government plans to use Islamic financing to pay for construction projects during the next decade. 

Hussain Hamid Hassan
United Arab Emirates
Attended: Al Azhar University
Advises: Deutsche Bank, HSBC Amanah
As chairman of Dubai Islamic Bank’s Shariah board, Hassan has signed off on some of the largest sukuks, or Islamic bonds, ever issued, including a $3.5 billion Dubai Ports offering in 2006. This summer, Hassan vetted an instrument structured by Deutsche Bank that pegs returns on halal investments to Western hedge funds. In an open letter to the Islamic financial community, cleric DeLorenzo criticized the vehicle as counter to Shariah.

Muhammad Taqi Usmani
Pakistan
Attended: Darul Uloom Karachi
Advises: HSBC Amanah, Guidance Financial Group
Usmani, a retired justice from Pakistan’s supreme court, advises a dozen financial institutions worldwide, including Dow Jones, which helped kick-start the Islamic finance movement in 1999 with its Islamic Market Indexes. The world index includes Shariah-compliant companies such as BP, Cisco Systems, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble. 


Nizam Yaquby
Bahrain
Attended: McGill University
Advises: HSBC Amanah, Dow Jones, A.I.G. Takaful
Yaquby, along with DeLorenzo, advised Lebanon-based investment bank BSEC last summer in the first sukuk originating in the U.S.: In the deal last July, Houston’s East Cameron Partners raised $166 million to help fund oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. With U.S. investors participating, the transaction was the first Islamic bond rated by Standard & Poor’s. (It received a CCC+.)