The revolution in January 2011 brought with it the hope of change and an improvement to economic and social conditions for Tunisian citizens. The finance sector would be at the centre of economic reforms which were able to achieve such an objective, their prosperity key to growth and development. In this context, the first democratic elections in the country’s history, in October 2011, saw a tripartite coalition surge to power and set out to fight corruption, reduce economic and social inequality and bring in reforms in the finance sector, granting a pivotal role to Islamic finance. This article not only aims to discover the state of Islamic finance in the country, and its institutional development across history and at the present time, it also focuses on the role of Islamic finance in promoting the development of a financial system based on an important factor in the world of finance: trust.
Financial development, Islamic banking and finance, political institutions, Tunisia.