WIFF-22 ends on asserting promotion of Islamic values for Islamic economy

KARACHI, May 31 (APP):Speakers Tuesday on the concluding day of World Islamic Finance Forum (WIFF-2022) emphasized on promoting Islamic social values for conversion of conventional finance system and the economy to a true Islamic ones, along with making required legislation, coming with revised financial policies and restructuring of financial institutions.

The forum was organized by Institute of Business Administration’s Center of Excellence for Islamic Finance. The theme of this international forum was “ Development of Islamic Finance Ecosystem for Global Prosperity”.

The speakers included renowned local and foreign researchers, religious scholars, economists, bankers and finance experts besides government functionaries. Besides panel discussions on different topics relating to Islamic finance, presentations were made and research papers were read by finance experts.

They said unless Muslim Ummah as a whole did not realize that practicing Riba (interest) was the war with Allah Almighty, true and fast conversion to Islamic financial system and the economies would be difficult. Not only the Muslims were at loss because of riba but it led to serious social and economic disorders for the entire humanity.

Muslims societies and the governments would have to prove their commitment and binding to Islamic teachings where riba was strictly prohibited. At the governments and institutional levels, concrete steps were required to successfully execute this great task of conversion
to Islamic economies, they emphasized.

They also underlined the need for looking out of the existing banking system and find the practical solutions to convince the people for shifting to Islamic mode of financial transactions.

The two-day international forum on Islamic finance recommended formation three or four working groups on different areas of financial system, of these one will be on fintech, for fast possible conversion of the financial system and the economy.

Through video-link speech, Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail assured all possible support to the efforts by State and private institutions towards conversion to Islamic finance system. By the next year, he said, the target was 35 percent Islamic banking.

And within next five years, he said, as per ruling of Federal Shariah Court of Pakistan the entire financial system was to be converted to Islamic one. Although the time seemed to be short yet the government would not spare any effort to meet the deadline, he pledged.

He appreciated the efforts of IBA for successfully arranging 3rd WIFF and that it would prove big contribution in converting to Islamic finance system in the country.

“No doubt, there are wonderful people in Pakistan on Islamic banking and research on it,” he remarked.

The minister also acknowledged that madaris (religious institutions) had done great job for promoting Islamic banking by producing many Shariah scholars who were also working on the board of directors of public and private financial institutions.

Conversion to Islamic mode of finance would be a revolutionary step and no doubt it would bring blessings of Allah Almighty and prosperity for us, he said.

SBP’s Acting Governor Dr. Murtaza Syed , who also participated through video-link, announced to constitute a working group tasked with sorting out the issues and find solutions for regular issuance of Sukkuks. The group would include representatives of Federal Ministry of Finance, and senior bankers from SBP and other banks, and Shariah financial experts.

He said Islamic banking was widely recognized as the fastest growing banking system throughout the world.

He mentioned that Islamic banks were medium sized and Fentech could play very important role in Islamic banking.
Prominent among the participants were Chairman of IBA-CEIF and former governor SBP, Dr Ishrat Hussain, IBA’s Executive Director Dr S Akbar Zaidi, Director IBA-CEIF, Ahmed Ali Siddique, IBA-CEIF’s Programme Director and Associate Professor Dr Irum Saba, President Meezan Bank Limited, Irfan Siddiqui, Dr Yahya Abdul Rehman from USA,
Dr Mohamed Eskandar Mohd. Rashid from Hamad Bin Khalidfa University, Rafe Hanif from Malysia and Omar Sheikh from UK Islamic Finance Council.