Interest and the Modern Economy: A Reply

doi: https://doi.org/10.35536/lje.2001.v6.i2.a8

Ali Ataullah & Minh Hang Le



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Abstract

“No single human being, human agency or group has a right to impose its view, in matters of the faith, on others. That must be left to every individual conscience to decide for him or her … Religious leaders and jurists, with their literalist training, often lack knowledge of societies and economies to have insights that may illuminate the fresh significance of old formulae”1 . In the previous issue of this journal, Zaman & Zaman (2001), by criticising Hamza Alavi, imply that the implementation of the so-called Islamic Banking is in the best interest of economy and only by following this system can we be serious Muslims. According to them, this implementation could be justified on the basis of modern economic and financial theories, and also by evaluating the financial system of developed countries. This paper only briefly discusses some acute theoretical and practical shortcomings in their article and suggests that the non-interest based system2 is not appropriate for the Pakistani economy, at least in the conceivable future.

Keywords

Response, interest, modern economy, Islamic banking, criticism, equity financing and asymmetric information