At the same time, the capital available for deployment into Shariah-compliant investments is vast and growing. At the heart of the Middle East, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman – form a market of 38 million residents (about the same population as California) with a combined annual GDP that grew in 2007 to reach US$840 billion. Add to this another 430 million Muslims living outside the Middle East – many of whom reside in prosperous or growing economies such as India, Malaysia, or.
