The ban on speculation means that Islamic transactions must be based on tangible assets, such as commodities, buildings or land.
If silver was one coveted commodity, ship-building timber was another, and the desire for the latter was a large part of Athens's motive for getting a foothold in the Amphipolis region.
New Labour too treated culture as a commodity – these buildings were to earn their keep via tourism, "creative industry" exports or, more often, as the fulcrum for property development.
Splitting this enormous garden in two is a 72-foot-wide central axis -- which Mr. Mangin compares to the Ramblas in Barcelona -- that joins Les Halles to the 18th-century Commodities Exchange building, which he proposes filling with cinemas, a fashion design center and a panoramic restaurant.
Bonds and loans that are fixed in nominal terms become less attractive to investors than assets like commodities and buildings whose prices move with inflation.
They pointed out that yesterday's rise in commodity prices was building on a gradual but substantial run-up in oil prices that started at the beginning of the year, mainly because of reductions in output that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries began in 2001.
Payment technology is a commodity; everyone's building the same thing, including banks (SCB UP2ME), telcos (TrueMoney, PAYSBUY), media (Line Pay, AirPay by Garena), retailers (helloPay by Lazada) and payment-focused startups (2C2P, Omise).
For others, it is hard not to conclude their lives have been reduced to expendable commodities in a building boom where site hoardings proclaim with no hint of irony: "Qatar deserves the best".
We are in favour of a long-term and coherent strategy to address the problems of commodity-dependent countries, building on extensive ongoing efforts.
Even the matter of building a commodity index stirs debate.
