Islamic finance has grown in prominence and is now widely regarded as a viable alternative to conventional, mainstream finance. However, this rapid growth has been accompanied by a number of pertinent issues relating to the alleged unfavourable performance of Shariah-compliant indexes, the limited availability of risk management tools and the framework of governance and regulatory standards with the Islamic banking and financial system. This thesis seeks to assess the state of both performance and development of risk management within the Islamic financial system. It investigates these issues through a variety of methods such as quantitative portfolio creation and econometric modelling of diversification benefits, theoretical development of a financial risk management tool and qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews on the perceptions of how governance and regulatory standards affect both the performance and financial innovation within Islamic finance. The results presented in this study provide robust arguments for the inclusion of Islamic indices within conventional portfolios both from a performance and diversification standpoint thus vindicating the viability of Islamic finance not only as an investment option but also a risk management option. Moreover, the research puts forward a new structure for an Islamic call-option, based upon risk-sharing rather than risk-transfer, which highlights the benefits of constructing financial risk management products through Shariah-compliant rules. Finally, the research also underlines the consensus of market participants behind central regulatory standards to enhance stable and continual growth and development of the Islamic financial system