In its more than four decades of existence, Islamic finance has expanded all over the globe but maintains a minimum presence in North African countries. While a 40% of the Islamic finance assests in the world are in Gulf countries and 22% in South-East Asia, the North of Africa hosts not even a 0,5%. In the last years, in the countries of the Gulf Islamic finance represents already a 34% of national financial markets, but in the countries of the North of Africa it did not represent more than 1%, with a presence only slightly bigger in Tunisia and Egypt (2 and 4%, respectively). Its scarce development in the North of Africa has been explained mainly by political as well as econonomic factors. The new context offered after the « so-called » Arab spring offers an exceptional environment in which to verify those different hypothesis about the incidence or not of those factors. The article draws an introduction to the question based on the objectives and contents of the current publication.
Financial development, financial reform, political economy, Islamic banking and finance, North of Africa, Islamist movements, Arab spring.