Pakistanis will continue making supposed religion-compliant investments
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: In Pakistan, you can sell anything in the name of religion and patriotism. Take the example of the interest-free Islamic banking system; have you ever seen banks showing a loss on Sharia-compliant deposits? In fact, banks offer competitive returns on such deposits. This means that whether we accept or not, both interest-paying and interest-free banking systems work on same principles.
The National Accountability Bureau has been investigating a number of modaraba and musharika-related fraud cases wherein so-called religious scholars and their agents and subagents presented unbelievable profiting schemes in mosques and madrassas, fooling the masses while offering between five and 10 per cent return on a monthly basis. The public was cheated of hundreds of billions of rupees. I wonder about another recent Sharia-compliant assets allocation fund offer in leading newspapers wherein Rs1,000,000 will grow to Rs30,000,000 in just five and a half years. Compare this unbelievable offer with commercial banks’ term deposit returns. In commercial banks, a term deposit of the same principal investment amount will grow to Rs13,000,000 or Rs14,000,000 in five years. The offered funds are looked after by a Sharia supervisory board, again consisting of scholars and muftis. Pakistanis will continue making supposed religion-compliant investments, and keep NAB and the FIA busy in the coming days.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2016.
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