Islamabad: Western banking system based on interest, greed and deceit cannot assist humanity, a former military general said Wednesday.

Interest-based banks have brought more miseries to humanity than calamities, plagues and wars, said Maj-Gen (Retd) Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi.

Fair distribution of wealth in possible only when all the local and international banks operating in Pakistan are transformed into Islamic banks or sent packing, he said while speaking at a Pakistan Economy Watch’s forum titled ‘Interest Based System and Our Future’.

He said banks are sucking blood of masses and the central bank has adopted a role of guardian. Banks are operating in a way that is against the teaching of Islam.

“We don’t need to follow western model, we have a better and impregnable model,” said Gen Abbasi who is also chief of Azmat-e-Islam Movement.

At the occasion, Dr. Murtaza Mughal, President PEW said the international financial turmoil has evaporated almost half of the world’s wealth and shaken the foundations of wealthy nations but not a single Islamic bank faced crumbled.

He said that now non-Muslim countries are taking more interest in Islamic economic and banking models to forge a new foolproof system.

“After a gap of hundreds of years, west is inspired from east because their system is still shaky despite an injection of three trillion dollars,” he said.

The assets of Islamic banks would soon surpass that of prevailing commercial banks. Non-Muslim account holders will have a major share, said Dr. Mughal.

Other speakers said that there is no room for interest in the three great religions but teachings have been altered.

They said that western system based on exploitation is sinking while the system designed to serve humanity is rising. “Our future is tied to it,” they said.

They said Islamic banking isn’t growing at desired rate. We need to introduce non-interest based banking with full confidence. Half-hearted and experimental efforts will not pay dividends. Islamic system is not designed for experiments.

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Murtaza Mughal
President, PEW
Cell: 0321-5157671

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