Need not worry, Allah will protect Pakistan: Islamic scholar

ISLAMABAD: Islamic scholar Professor Ahmad Rafique Akhtar has said that Pakistan faced no crisis and instead, there were some issues for which its people were to be blamed.

Prof Ahmad Rafique, who is known for scholastic discourses on mysticism and spirituality, delivered a lecture on “Renaissance of Islam: Dream or Reality?” during the Annual Academic Session 2023 at his institution Alamaat in hometown Gujar Khan.

“There’s no need to worry about Pakistan. Allah Almighty will protect it,” he said. People from different parts of the country and even from the United States, Europe and the Middle East showed up in large numbers with women outnumbering men, according to the organisers.

They said almost 70 percent of the 10,000-12,000 participants were women and that the turnout had registered an upward trend over the years. The event started off with recitation from the Holy Quran and Naatkhwani.

The Islamic scholar said whenever the Muslims suffered a debacle, it happened because they turned to nationalism distancing themselves from the teachings of Islam. He said Islamic ideology never failed and instead, nations continued to fall.

Prof Akhtar said Allah Almighty loved to see the man turn to Him with excuses for his or her sins before seeking forgiveness. He said the biggest problem with the Pakistani economy was usury, which is tantamount to waging an open war against Allah Almighty and Prophet Muhammad (SAW), and Pakistanis had been doing it for the last 70 years. “We will have to introduce the system of Sadaqa. Allah Almighty allows us to do it gradually, but just think what will become of us if we wage a war against Him with the current interest-based banking system,” he said.

The scholar said Pakistanis gave away Rs270 billion in charity every year but all those were individual acts, so authorities and banks would have to get together to make the best use of that money to do away with usury.

He said before the world suffered from the ongoing economic crisis a few years ago, he forecast on the basis of his Quranic knowledge that 2023 would be the “year of Allah Almighty’s wrath” and that turned out to be true.

Prof Akhtar said the Russia-Ukraine war had hit the world economy hard causing serious consequences for the West in particular. He said if the war in Ukraine continued for years, the economy of the West would crumble.

“The world faces food insecurity but there is no such threat to Muslim nations, including Pakistan. We have plenty of grain, and won’t suffer from famine as promised by Allah Almighty to Prophet Muhammad (SAW),” he said.

The scholar said the European civilisation was eclipsing, while its excellence in knowledge was also on the decline. He said Islamic countries should abolish the interest-based economic system and organise their banking sectors along the lines defined by Allah Almighty.

“Muslim countries should create an organisation that could help each other in difficult times apart from fulfilling the Ummah’s defence needs, and they all should contribute manpower to it,” he said.

Prof Akhtar also responded to the questions from people who attended the event in person or online.

He led prayers for the victims of the recent floods in Pakistan and a strong earthquake in Turkiye and Syria, and the welfare of Muslims living in other parts of the world. Dr Amjad Saqib, who runs the largest interest-free microfinance programme in the world, said his organisation Akhuwat gave away Rs200 billion loans to 5.5 million families (around 300 million people) and recovered 99.999 per cent of them without using force.

He suggested that only 10,000 people set up Sadaqa banks with a deposit of Rs0.1 million each in their respective areas to give away small-time, interest-free business loans to create livelihood opportunities for the poor – a model of poverty alleviation by uplifting the people.