India Pakistan Relations

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/siddharth-chatterjee/post_5422_b_3755719.html?utm_hp_ref=world

Both India and Pakistan are STUPID in spending huge sums on defence when schools and colleges throughout the subcontinent  do not have adequate functioning sanitation facilities and millions sleep on the road side

For what ? It is high time they solved the problem as many countries in the West did. EGO on both sides prevent this.


For the financial year 2012-13, India's defense budget was at Rs. 1,93,407 crores (about $42 billion), an increase of 17 percent from the previous year.

Compare that with the health budget for the same year at Rs. 34,488 crores(USD 5.7 billion) and the education budget at Rs. 61,427 crores(USD 10.06 billion).

India's health and education budgets combined were only half of the defence budget last year! Isn't this a startling figure for India, a country where 33 percent, nearly 400 million, of the world's poorest live? And millions of children go hungry, are sick and uneducated?

We will have to work hard for a permanent solution for India and Pakistan's problems. We will have to push our leaders to begin the process anew with commitment and fortitude, and to see this process through until solutions are found.

 First and foremost, it is important to note that the ceasefire agreement is violated hundreds of times a year by both countries.

More importantly, the knee-jerk response from the media and political parties is to demand the suspension of talks and insist on an eye for an eye.

The result is that the public, already tired of decades of conflict with neighbouring Pakistan, has its sentiments inflamed. This is not a solution to anything. In fact, let us consider history. Every time talks are suspended and people demand retribution, nothing changes, The underlying issues are never resolved.

The need of the hour is not for politicians and the news media to retreat into shallow, short-sighted and hostile rhetoric,

The need is for pragmatism and a real political resolve to put this border issue to rest once and for all, so that more blood and the treasures of both nations are no longer wasted.

The issues to be discussed are numerous, daunting and will take time; whether it is Kashmir, state-sponsored terrorism, Afghanistan or water issues,


India and Pakistan need to agree to sit down at a table together to hash it out once and for all. Given the paranoia that exists in each country regarding the other, and the fact that both countries are sitting on sizable nuclear arsenals whose use, would take both countries back decades economically, decimate its populations and impoverish both Nations.

Can Islam Based Banks Work Under a Different Definition of Interest?

Can Islam Based Banks Work Under a Different Definition of Interest?

In the opinion of Muhammad Asad,
"Every successive Muslim generation is faced with the challenge of giving new dimensions and a fresh economic meaning to the term Riba ( interest) which, for want of better word, may be rendered as usury."

So the pressing question is, "Are Muslim scholars dynamic in reinterpreting the concept of usury (Riba) in order to find solutions to the problems arising in the modern contemporary world of advanced economics?"

TRADITIONAL ALIMS'(Scholars) INSUFFICIENCY IN DEALING WITH COMPLICATED ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

More knowledgeable Alims who have been well trained in both Islamic jurisprudence and in specialized fields of study such as economics, investment, insurance, banking, finance etc., should come forward and try hard to intellectualize the educational, marital, economic, financial, corporate, investment, banking, insurance and other mundane problems of the minority Muslims of India and the world.

I am sure Islamic principles can not be as rigid as our conservative scholars expect us to believe. Please bear in mind that  Muslim minorities are not governed by Wilayat-al-fiqih (Islamic laws), but are governed by compromising
secular laws, hence we can not apply Islamic jurisprudence in their finest details in Toto.

The basic question to be addressed is:
"Do the secular laws of non-Muslim nations undermine the basic beliefs of Muslim minorities?"

In accordance with the opinions of  world renounced Imams (Muslim leaders)  Muslim minorities ought to live by the laws of the country where they live, as long as the laws allow Muslims to adhere to the basic personal and private practices of Islam.

This has been the position of millions of Muslims living in the U.S.A., U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Australia and in some of the Asian countries like
India,  China, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Singapore etc

Leaders of Muslim minorities should not  make an illogical ruling on insurance or buying homes on mortgage and similar interest based contractual financial transactions, and put the minority  Muslims at a very big economic disadvantage when their standard of living and per- capita incomes are several degrees far below the national average of the majority community.

ISLAM BASED BANKING IN OTHER COUNTRIES

To take a case study, Malaysia has an excellent Islamic banking.

Islamic bankers operate on financial rewards to the depositors, levy charges on the borrowers, The terminology varies but the basic principles remain very much the same.

Minority Muslims should develop and possess  the resources, caliber, organisation, corporate mindset and honest business ethics to set up similar Islamic principle based institutions that exist not only in Malaysia but even in very many Western countries catering for the economic needs of Muslim minorities
( Even Dow Jones has its Shariyah based share index, so does London FT index).




THE CONCEPT OF INTEREST (usury) IN ISLAM:

The concept of interest is one of the most complicated in Islam. The Prophet received the revelation condemning riba only a few days before his death and so the companions had no opportunity to ask the blessed prophet (SAW) for the fullest implications of the order. Even Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattab had said,



"The last revelation of the Quran was concerning riba(usury) and the Apostle of Allah passed away before explaining the full meaning of the passage to us" ( Ibn Hanbal, on the authority of Said ibn al-Musayyab).

The exploitation of the economically weak by the strong is a form of oppression. Hence, attaching profits (riba) on the personal loans obtained by those who are really poor, downtrodden and debt-laden is a disgrace and is condemned as haram(forbidden) by Islam. There can never be two conflicting opinions on this.

But not all interest-bearing financial transactions fall within this category of exploitation by the economically strong. Life assurance and  buying houses on mortgage are two examples of contractual financial transactions which fall outside this category of exploitation.

To quote Muhammad Asad again," the question as to what kinds of financial transactions fall within the category of riba(usury) is, in the last resort, a moral one".

It is impossible to give an outright judgment in a non-Muslim country banning on all kinds of interest-bearing financial transactions, in a rigid and once-for-all manner putting the economically weak Muslim
minority in non-Muslim majority countries at a greater economic disadvantage.

The interpretation of Islamic scholars must not ignore the changes to man's environment on his social, economic and technological development.

 That is the adoring beauty of the Quran. It is Islam's  biggest miracle. People living the third millennium may  read the same Quran without an alphabet having been  changed, but will  see totally new light, new messages,  new interpretations and new discoveries that go  beautifully and logically cognizant of the  socio-  economic- technological environment of that time that we  people living in the second millennium never ever dreamt  of.

   Hence my simple assertion is that, our traditional          Muslim  scholars  should not apply the first century        Hijrah  definition of Riba to solve the most complicated    economic  problems of the 21st century.

One other point that is wo     What is worth mentioning here is that, during the time of the Prophet(SAW) the valuemo   the prophet money value  was constant and inflation was non-existent and hence Riba    non-existent and hence Riba as the sort practised  by Arabs like Abbas-RAA )was fo   Arabs like Abbas was forbidden because the lender even after a year of waiting  will  after a year would get the money that he lent whose purchasing power had not d     value has not diminished at all.

But in many countries  the annual rate of inflation

  is about 15 to 20%.

   In such a condition of rising prices, is it

  fair to expect a person depositing his money for

  safe-keeping ( or lending to another trader who

  makes profits) with a bank to withdraw the same

  amount without any additions, say after a period

  of 12   months.

Should the Alims give a fatwa(judgment) that bank

interest on deposit is haram, the depositor will

get back the same amount whose purchasing power

has fallen by 15 to 20%

This is one of the angles (there are many others)

from which we should aim for a new definition of riba( 

But in many countries  the a