Banking, Western versis Mideastern

As our debt crisis is all about banks charging (unrealizable) interest on loans, must that be inevitable? Islamic banks are forbidden to charge interest. Therefore they had to find other ways to share the risk with the borrower. Could we learn from them? Here is a comparison worth considering if we're going to stay competitive and "keep up with the Azizzes."

http://www.topmba.com/articles/jobs/...can-west-learn

Also, I think it's noteworthy that the people over there keep a lot of gold underneath the floorboards of the head-of-the-family's home. But that's another method predating our current system, although it would rollback the high inflation rate at the backside of our credit-based fiat currency based banking system. It must be a penalty of some sort for our not being on the gold standard, I guess. It's complicated, the hole we've dug for ourselves with the current system. I'm just saying. Nor do I advocate sharia law. But might there be a middle ground worth banking on?