Rather than “Good morning”, As-Sal-mu `Alaykum or “Peace be upon you,” may be the greeting you get when you call a bank in a few months.

At present the 45,000 or so Muslims in Ireland have no access to Sharia-compliant financial products that forbid the payment of interest.

Ali Selim, a theologian and secretary to theologians at The Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland (ICCI), says there are around 2,000 Muslim doctors in Ireland, 95% of whom don’t own houses because mortgages are contrary to their beliefs.

Efforts are under way to resolve this. According to the Irish Times, the ICCI held a seminar last month to see what can be done.

Ironically, Selim says the Bank of Ireland is already offering Islamic mortgages in the UK, adding that, “The first financial institution that offers products here will take all the fruit.”

Brendon Dalton, chief executive of IFG Whitehall, is working hard to be that company. He’s already in discussions with the major lenders to resolve the legal issues, and is seeking approval from the Islamic scholars for the products he wants to offer.

Dalton reckons that Sharia-compliant mortgages could be worth €150m in Ireland and that there’s a further market for loans.

What kind of people work in Islamic finance? In the UK, where the market’s already well established, it’s not just Muslims who are moving into the fast growing Sharia-compliant space – fixed income professionals are transferring across too. This is because many Sharia products are similar to fixed income products, albeit with the caveat that no interest is either paid or collected.

For the moment, however, Dalton envisages employing and training foreign Arabic speakers as intermediaries to sell the products into the Irish market.