Recently, a premier Islamic finance scholar, Mohammed Taqi Usmani, declared some aspects of sukuk to be un-Islamic, specifically the buyback at cost and the interest-free non-recourse loans.

FORBES: Legal Lip Service

Repair Section 469 by applying its limitations to non-recourse interest losses only and exempt economic losses to cost basis, and then watch the real estate market turn around fast.

FORBES: Bring Back Housing By Bringing Back Tax Shelters

Low interest rates reduce the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as gold.

ECONOMIST: How asset prices react to quantitative easing

In normal times the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold, instead of interest-bearing bank deposits or government bonds, is high.

ECONOMIST: Buttonwood: Precious relic | The

This debt bias is based on the accounting rationale that interest is a tax-deductible cost of doing business while dividends are a non-deductible form of business income.

FORBES: Tax Code Rewards Debt, Penalizes Dividends