A Consumer Culture Manifesto

* Everything is up for sale, including humans, religion, knowledge, relationships, wisdom, health etc. 

* Value of everything including humans and relationships etc. are measured in monetary terms, this is even true for religious beliefs and spirituality ...

* An individual is worthy more if he or she spends more and more on consumables, poor are therefore worthless creatures ...

* Purpose of a human being is to buy and sell in ever increasing quantities, there is no upper limit, nothing is enough ...

* The more irrational or impulsive the buyer the better he or she is ...

* It's always morally correct to buy more even if you do not need anything ...

* Only market can fulfill all human needs including emotional, social, moral and spiritual needs ... 

* Needs which the market can't fulfill better be ignored, or fulfilled through the stuff sold in the market even if the needs are emotional, moral, social or spiritual ...

* Sharing culture is bad for the economy, unless it can also become a source of income ...

* Every individual should ideally purchase for themselves, 

* You must borrow money if you don't have enough, you must perpetually remain in debt ...

* You must dispose stuff as quickly as possible, products are designed to fail after a while so that consumers are unable to use them beyond a certain time ...

* Purpose of natural resources is to fill the bottomless stomach of the modern consumer, who can only stop when his money or the limit on his credit card runs out ...  

* Resources will flow towards those who can pay better but not those who need more ...

* Products must be made as addictive as possible to ensure perpetual purchase ...

* Customer must remain oblivious of the harmful affects of consumption, or how the workers were abused in the process of manufacturing or how the environment was damaged, better not known to the consumer ... 

* Its legit to emotionally or even religiously manipulate the customer into buying something ... 

Sectarian or ethnic violence as an externalization of a crisis in self-image

Jungian psychologists like Alice Miller and Lionel Corbett argue that the unconscious negativity we have for our own being is eventually projected onto others, if it is too much then it may turn into violence as well. It’s a kind of escape goat tactic played out by our ego as a defense mechanism. The ego finds it too hard to direct the violence toward oneself, and easier toward something or someone else as soon as it finds an excuse. 

Jungians argue that this externalization of hate and violence is at the root of ethnic and sectarian violence as well. A class of people who are economically improvised, not entertained well by the higher classes, may raise their children also while being under a lot of stress. The silent message ‘you are a burden’ maybe internalized for life by children being raised in such environments, despite the parents did their best in their limited capacity. The message is then reverberated by the society when such children grow up. 

Religion then comes to the rescue. A class of people which was otherwise rejected, is welcomed by religion. Religion thus can be a powerful transformative force to recover from a self-image crisis. But some religious demagogues use it to manipulate the insecurities of the improvised classes. The demagogues do not help transform the self-hate into self-respect, rather used the hate as a means to unite the disciples against an opponent. The hate rather is integrated into the identity of the disciple; ‘I hate therefore I am’. 

The demagogue may not be a popular religious figure, rather a secular politician who use this hate against an ethnic group. The opponents on both sides can keep projecting their internal hate onto the other, turning it into a vicious cycle. 

Often the state uses one group against the other to achieve some ends beyond the comprehension of the common public. Karachi for example has been a victim of such rivalries for many decades. When one or both opponents use religion to justify their projection of hate onto the other, it turns into sectarian violence. The recent violence in Lahore against the state and general public maybe evaluated in the same context.  

Since righteousness of one’s actions as a Muslim depends on the correctness of one’s intentions; therefore It is a critical moment of self-reflections for the initiators of violence of recent protests in Lahore to evaluate that if they turned violent against their fellow citizens who also adhere to the same faith, because they love Prophet s.a.w, or if they were projecting their internal animosities towards an opponent while using love for Prophet as an excuse to justify their projections. What if on the Day of Judgement, it turns out the loss of life and property they caused in the name of the love of Prophet s.a.w was an act carried out in pure selfish-interest to avoid the pain of self-hatred. There could have been many peaceful alternatives of staging protest or convey the pain caused by the insult to Prophet Muhammad s.a.w by some Frenchman.  

The reader might wonder, if the root of the conflicts as explained above is true, then how the self-hate may be cured. Again, the handiest tool available for the society is religion. Religion gives the message that all are acceptable in front of thy Lord, if they abstain from certain acts, be patient, and more so if they are poor then the rewards for their patience and steadfastness is many folds, while the affluence of the affluent class is a test against which one will be held accountable on the Day of Judgement. 

However, as Prophet s.a.w himself said that poverty can also take one towards apostasy, and it is easier for demagogues to exploit the poor, so any honest and unconditional poverty elevation initiatives or measures to advance socioeconomic justice by state or non-state actors, may help revive the self-respect of the pauper as well. Little wonder, why Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, got a noble peace prize, instead of a noble prize of economics. In Pakistan also many interest free alternatives operating to elevate poverty, may also have a positive impact in transforming the self-image of a class of people, and eventually achieve a more peaceful society. 

The Colonial Hangover

We live in a post-colonial world, have we even gotten over with the colonial hangover? Not just from our psyches, but also from our collective lives, also from the institutional framework we follow? 

We live in a world which still uses a system designed to manage the colonies. We were ruled directly before, and now by proxy yet effectively by the same masters. 

Our education system still produce people to keep the same system running, and we feel bad when we find out that a part of the population is not able to get the very education which ensures that our individual and collective lives, and institutions should keep running the way our colonial masters intended to ...

I am even writing this post in English, what's the word for colonialism or post-colonialsim in Urdu, maybe I know it, but how many times it is used in conversations, in media, by intellectuals to highlight anything?

There were effectively three nations at the time of partition, we parted from one, but the partition from the second one never happened, we don't even know what it would be like, how frequently we talk about this?

We perhaps live with an illusion of freedom, and perhaps are so hopelessly dependent on it that even the idea of getting ourselves free from the contemporary system may sound nonsensical to most around. It's rather fundamental to our survival in the contemporary world. 

We can't break free, so we should also know what can't be done in this system. We can't do much to free Palestine, Kashmir ... wasn't Yemen also under occupation? Let's leave it for some other time. Just raise a little voice, do a little protest, slap ourselves in the faces, that's it ... 

The govt. can't even sell electricity at a price it wants to, don't even talk about eliminating interest from the banking system, let alone eliminating the banking system in the first place, and after SBP given it's autonomy, the army I believe can't even fire a bullet without the permission of their masters (IMF etc.) ... and we talk about freeing a people from a tyranny thousands of miles away ... 

Short Review and Comments on Steve Pinker's The Better Angles of our Nature

By Dr. Omar Javaid

Steve Pinker in his behemoth 800+ pages book The Better Angles of our Nature totally misses the point. Pinker use cherry picked statistical data from across history to make the point that we are now living in significantly more peaceful times. He also never explained how archaeologists calculated the population from ancient times and how their population estimate are accurate. While he spent lots of time explaining how archaeologists found out the number of homicides or deaths along with their causes. The Data, is also very much Eurocentric, so it excludes the experience of the eastern part of the world.

A part from the data being biased, Pinker fails to address perhaps a more important point! Are we happier during these peaceful times? Yuval Noah Harari, a best selling author, historian, for example, would rather respond in negation. Harari believes that we might be living in materially well-off or perhaps peaceful times, but our subjective well being is worse than the people who lived before us though in difficult time but who at least had a meaning in their lives.

Finland for example is ranked as the happiest country in the world by UN, Nordic countries are also considered happier then the rest of the world, also perhaps more peaceful in comparison. However, more people commit suicide in Nordin countries then in many other parts of the so called underdeveloped world. Suicide rate of Finland for example is 6 times that of Pakistan as a percentage of population.

The percentage of millennials and generation Z in Finland who are suffering from a clinically depressed is significantly higher also as compare to those countries who are considered to be less happier as per the scales of UN. Will Storr argues that if anti-depressant drugs would not have been invented, the percentage of suicide would have been many times higher than it is today particularly in the so called first world.

So the ultimate Question which Pinker should have focused rather is that are we living a more meaningful or happier life these days? Is there a statistical data to confirm that our state of subjective well-being is better as compare to that of our Ancestors? The point here is not to justify violence, that violent times are better because we feel better during violent times. The act of violence in fact has nothing to do with out sense of subjective well-being, it is rather our sense of meaningfulness and internal contentment that we experience.

In fact our life become meaningful when we aspire for goals higher then our own selves (see Victor Frankl for details). When we strive to improve the lives of others around us. And if we have a framework to make sense of our extra-rational (generally referred to as irrational) dimension of our internal experience which includes our emotions, dreams, intuition etc (see Carl Jung for details).

Harari believes that we were better at making sense of our extra-rational inclinations while connecting it with a sense of meaningfulness. We had a purpose, a worldview, a narrative, which connected everything into a single whole. That narrative could have been a fairy-tale, but was rational in every meaning of the word in view of Nassim Nicholas Talib. Talib argues that does a narrative collective shared by a group of people in theri material and subjective survival? If yes, then the narrative is to be referred to as rational. If it doesn't, it isn't.

Unsurprizingly our ancestors did had such a narrative, while modernism stripped it away from our lives in the name of rationalism, or in the name of science which cannot give meaning to our extra-rational experiences. If my life is result of an accident which happened billions of years ago,

So the question which Steve Pinker should rather focus is, are we happier now? instead of asking if we are living in a more peaceful time, as if I am not happy, and unable to bear the burden of my own existence, then I might very will kill my ownself. 

Short Book Review: Life 3.0 by Max Tagmark

Review by Dr. Omar Javaid

Max Tagmark's book Life 3.0 does a good job on one end and a very bad job on the other. The good job which this book does is to give a expansive overview of the concept of Artificial Intelligence, what possibilities its development holds, how it will effect humanity etc.

However, when it comes to defining what life really is, and should we really call artificial intelligence as an upgraded form of life or not, the books fails miserably.

One of the greatest mysteries of life is human consciousness, a sense of self-awareness, and an ability of subjectively experience the moments of life. Without making an effort to define human consciousness, any definition of life is ought to be incomplete.

Yuval Noah Harai in his Homo Deus does a much fairer job in this context. Robert Lanza's book Biocentrism is perhaps the best work on the human consciousness so far.

Tagmark on the other hand in Life 3.0 barely touches the subject of human consciousness. The last chapter on the book offers a meager literature review on the subject, where Tagmark accepts the inability of scientists in general to explain or describe the ultimate source of subjective experience within human mind.

If that's the case, then normative justification for the AI to be the next step in the evolution of life itself, is nothing short of comical. After going through Lanza's Biocentrism, and Harari's Home Deus, Tagmark work on the subject seems mediocre at best.

So if someone is interested in reading about Artificial Intelligence alone, while excluding the normative justifications for AI, then the book will serve the purpose well. However, if you are interested to understand life itself, then please avoid this book. 

Rouge Bureaucracies

Dr. Omar Javaid

Francis Fukuyama suggests that state bureaucracies emerged to cope the threat faced by empires from external invaders. After agricultural revolution, when human society produced surplus for the first time, threats of invasion from outsiders became a problem, and as an antidote an army had to be maintained to thwart the invaders. During earlier days, every member of a tribe was trained to fight, but when tribes grew in size and turned into empires, professional armies were created to readily fight back the invaders or initiate an advance into enemy territory. That was a pre-requisite for survival of an empire, particularly when the empire was in competition with another empire of comparable size. To finance the army, a system of taxation was typically employed. The public was convinced to pay a tax in exchange of the security from foreign invaders. To manage the tax collection and utilize it to maintain an army, a bureaucratic system was created, which would manage resources without nepotism and whose managers would serve the empire above any personal agenda. Thwarting nepotism was in fact core principle behind erecting bureaucracies. At first bureaucracies managed the resources necessary to maintain an army, and later law enforcement. Today the system is employed by every state to maintain an entire array of public institutions including system of education, health care, railway, airports, law enforcement, garbage collection, supply of utilities, maintenance of city infrastructure etc.

The Question of Compatibility of Islam with Modernism

Dr. Omar Javaid (Based on his talk at IBA on 21st Feb 2019)

"Who wants to be happy in life? All of you perhaps! Consumerism, one of dominant modern ideology, tells us that by maximizing consumption we can maximize our happiness, despite modern economics talks about diminishing marginal utility. Most of us today, perhaps under social pressures, often follow consumerist ideals, without realizing that in real it makes us unhappy at the end if the day. Typical corporate culture also encourage us to be a better consumer, and by focusing and surrounding ourselves with too much material products we risk acquiring materialistic values. We may begin to see and evaluate our relationship with real people in context with the relationship we have with products. Our relationship may even become disposable, eventually we would perhaps become lonely, surrounded more with things and less with people. In fact we may end up determining the worth of people we know from the products they owns, and worth of the time spent with them by the material benefit we receive from them. This has already become true in the western world according to Ralph Ferver, even in context of the time we spend with our children and parents and other close family members.

The Irony in using science to sight the moon

Dr. Omar Javaid

It is ironic that in an attempt to unite the nation on the date of Eid Celebration, Mr. Fawad Chaudhry only succeeded in dividing it even further. His insistence on the use of scientific method to determine the date of an event of a pure religious nature only doubles the ironicity of the matter.

Why Muslims Celeberate Eid, or fast during Ramazan, or pray fives a day? To answer this question we will obviously ask some religious authority or scripture. If this is correct, then who would answer the question about how and when to fast, offer prayers or celebrate Eid, or if observational, technological, statistical, or any other technological or scientific method for answering the above questions? Again the answer is perhaps the same.

Why do Pakistan need IMF?

“Why a country goes to IMF?”

Because the country wants to import some stuff which it doesn’t produce in-house, and is short of money, so it has to borrow money from IMF.

“What are the other ways a country can make money to buy stuff from other countries?”

There can be many ways, Export revenues, tourists’ spending money, remittances, foreign investment, donations from other countries, lending from friendly countries etc.

“Why can’t we rely on these sources?”

How to prevent suicidal behavior?

Written by Dr. Omar Javaid

According to WHO “is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally”[1], Will Storr[2] suggests that high use of anti-depressant drugs prevent many from committing suicides, if such drugs are not available than perhaps the rate of suicide would have been many times more. In Finland, the country declared happiest by UN, 6.93 times more people commit suicide than in Pakistan[3]! The rate is many times higher in other Nordic countries as well in comparison to countries like Pakistans[4]. Are people committing suicide out of happiness?

The question of gender equality in modern market society

If the traditional family is abhorred like it is in the depicted picture, then perhaps modern free market would be considered as a better place for women to grow or thrive ... What needs to be acknowledged that often women in the modern market society also complain about their unequal treatment (not to mention colossal amount of sexual harassment cases [1] which doesn't seems to reduce with more freedom) like why their wages are not as same as men? Its seems this complain never questions the foundation of free market society which legitimize free competition in a social Darwinian context means the FITTEST WILL SURVIVE/THRIVE [2] ... free unregulated competition eventually create conditions for inequality, which hurt both men and women equally.

On The Future of Careers

Image courtesy: www.huffingtonpost.com

1. The culture of long term employment in big corporations is going away, the big giants will either automate, or outsource most of their stuff, many corporations are not planning more then 6 months in advance due to uncertain future ... AI will be replacing lots of jobs ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2012/08/30/careers-are-dead-welcome-to-your-low-wage-temp-work-future/#6a338994a882

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/03/20/5-reasons-why-long-term-employment-is-dead-and-never-coming-back/#1b87187034e4

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/

2. Self-employment will become more common rather trendy

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinelove/2016/04/27/millennials-chart-paths-to-impassioned-self-employed-success/#3a9dbdce7eac

https://www.fastcompany.com/3034268/the-future-of-work/why-millennials-want-to-work-for-themselves

http://time.com/money/2791611/millennials-entrepreneurship-survey-economy/

The Intellectual Holocaust

Omar Javaid

Before industrial revolution, large corporations were no existent.

The largest institutions were perhaps armies, and then the govt. bureaucracies that also only in complex societies like Chinese, or Roman, of Islamic civilizations etc. ...

The majority of the population either had to manage their own source of sustenance, therefore taking risk and facing uncertainty for survival was the norm, the risk was mitigated rather through social cohesion.

In Muslim cities the markets were organized around guilds, a type of family business which nurtured future traders/merchants ...

it is only after the advent of modern civilization that the employment culture has spread far and wide.

After spending like 200 years the modern man says that not everyone has an apatite to take risk and manage uncertainty.

Remaining inside the comfort zone isn't natural, u can't grow likewise. Growth requires resistance/challenges/difficulties/pain ... try growing without it

While being an employee, a corporate slave you die spiritually and then intellectually, turning you into a walking corpse, a zombie ...

The system, starting from the education to the very corporations is guilty of this holocaust of an global scale ...

Author tweets at @omar.javaid

Pornification of Women's image in Western Culture

Sometimes backed I watched a few TED talks (by Gail Dines, Holly Baxter, Jean Kilbourne, Ran Gavrieli) on the impact of the image of objectified women in an advertisement in the west is impacting the well-being of women ...

All of them argued that the women in the west are literally forced in the name of freedom of expression to act more like a porn star, and teenage boys (discovering and becoming addicted to porn at an age of 10-12) are also growing up learning the same, with a growing tendency to dominate, oppress, exploit, abuse, humiliate women in their lives ...

Anarchy on the roads of Karachi

The roads in Karachi are on the verge of converting into parking lots for food outlets, shopping malls, coaching centers and of course elite schools (etc.). Busy roads are also becoming a favorite spot for all kinds of protests, political activities and religious processions.

The broken patches, a common sight on every road, only adds to the problem. Despite the increasing severity of the situation, the slumber of authorities on the mess on our roads is alarming. The public also seems to be losing the little road sense they earlier had.

The parked vehicles casually obstruct the traffic, breaking signals is almost a norm, while going on the wrong side of the road with high beams during late hours is in vogue now.

The Fallen One

By Farhan Noor (Editor, Critic Magazine)

Your love is so pure, so true, that it makes me hate myself.
I deceive you with my cleverly woven web of lies
All intricately formulated in tears and smiles
To make you feel like a fool
Unworthy of my side
And yet you fall prostrate before the All Mighty, All Powerful
In thankfulness, in gratitude, every single time
When I just look at you in approval & nod
Without contempt, without disdain
Only but for a fiddling while

You apologize to me for my wrongdoings, for my mistakes
Beg for mercy, compassion, and forgiveness
Which I accept but not before humiliating you
Slapping across your sinless face
Denying your very existence
Every passing breath

I have deliberately kept you broken, starved, and tortured
And inflicted you with carrot-and-stick lovemaking
Set you against yourself, your conscience
Left you mutilated, manipulated
Spiritually bankrupt within
And yet, it is you, fondling my hair, caressing me
Praying for my health, wealth, and glory
Every passing breath

With your love so pure, so true, tell me how do I correspond?
I am, after all, the Shaitan, lord of the evil, the fallen one

The Tongue

By Farhan Noor (Editor, Critic Magazine)

How shamelessly thankless we are to Allah! What if He were to treble the size of our tongues and let it hang out like that of a dog’s, shorten it by half, make it fatter and heavier, or tinier and lighter, roll it up like a carpet, or nail it on its head dead as a doormat? What if He were to take away those taste buds and that sense of smell that gives our food the purpose and the meaning and the flavors, the textures, the temperatures, and the sensations for which we crave for and willingly pay money to buy it? Imagine eating peanuts without its saltiness, honey without its sweetness, lemons without its sourness, radish without its bitterness, and meat without its savories—when where daal and murghi, palak and ghosht, halwa and machli, all begin to taste like the tasteless water and the odorless air!

What would drive our appetite and invite our hunger? Carbohydrates and protein, or calcium and vitamins deficiency—think about it! What if He were to take back our tongue altogether and instead leave an empty nest in our mouths? How would we speak? Or swallow our food? Or clean our teeth (for some)? How ridiculously ugly and freakish and frightening would we look in appearance? Imagine knowing for even one minute that you could never talk again! Can Science replace our natural tongue? Say it can—but what cost, time, and effort will it demand from us as compared to that which we applied in getting one from Allah? And how much better will it be for the one that Allah gave us for free as our Caring and Loving, most Cherishing Creator? We resort more faith in Science than in Allah! “Have we not made for him a pair of eyes, and a tongue, and a pair of lips, and shown him the two highways?” [Surat Al-Balad 90:8-10] How do we thank Allah for this priceless and irreplaceable Naimat? We use this same tongue to lie instead of telling the Truth, sing songs instead of reciting the Glorious Quran, slander and backbite, argue and gossip, falsely accuse and allege, insult and abuse, yell profanity, spread rumors, and spend our lifetimes chattering and babbling about empty and godless talks in vanity: is this how it should be?

Imagine there are people in this world who say things which our beloved Creator dislikes the most: associating partners with Him and praising and glorifying them instead of Him, and yet we sit and watch in silence leashing the very tongue which we would not hesitate to use if they were to abuse and insult and say wrong about our loved ones! Such hypocrisy! Such thanklessness! Such wretchedness! Such impiety! Allah tells us in Surah Al-Fussilat 41:33 how to properly thank Him for this particular Naimat: “Who is better in speech than one who calls (men) to Allah, works righteousness, and says: ‘I am a Muslim’?” Perhaps its about time we put our tongues to its proper use.

The I, The Me, The Myself

By Farhan Noor (Editor, Critic Magazine)

I understand, not for the first time, and perhaps why I do, and probably why it grieves me, ails me, and consumes me, day after day, night after night. Perhaps I am no longer the man I used to be let alone the one I want to be or wanted to be. I understand why it happened the way it happened. I understand completely, absolutely, entirely; I understand perhaps because there was nothing to know about—it was all a matter of time, and I knew it, right from the first mistake: when I deliberately misunderstood. Lo, and behold, for, indeed, ignorance is bliss and in that bliss, sinning is sweet. It is. I know because I have bathed in that joy, sunshine and storm. I have, and now I am drowning.

I understand, not that you don’t, how I feel, not because you may or may not be drowning like myself, but because you are like me—a human—a soul entrapped in a body of an animal calling out to an angel. I know you understand exactly what I mean. Or perhaps not. I would rather vouch on my staunchest enemy that too on my life and what more, on my soul, that fallen Djinn Iblees, who we popularly refer to as the Satan. To understand me better, far better, without any beginning, without any end, no holds barred, than I would ever. I confess: I don’t know myself. This thought ascends from the deepest voice in my heart, the very place where the conviction is grown from seeds of belief and knowledge. What more, I have belief, and I have knowledge. But I don’t know myself, not because I am lost, or confused, or wounded, or astray, but because I fear of finding the ultimate Truth about myself. I, after all, am my greatest enemy; am I not? Aren’t we all?

This is Pakistan

• Only Nuclear Power in the Muslim world
• Four Seasons with all their splendor
• Deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes... all variety of natural beauty (and we have got tons of it) and beautiful people ;)
• Best Mangoes in the world
• Yummiest of traditional foods like chicken karahi, biryani, haleem, dal chawal, halwa puri, nehari etc. etc. 
• Shan masala ;)
• Top ranking army and intelligence agency
• Exemplary hospitality
• One of the most charitable country (with respect to the percentage share of income)
• Exemplary spirit of volunteerism 
• Massive variety of vegetables and fruits, among top ten producer in a verity of agri products like mango, milk, rice, onion, apricot, wheat, oranges, sugarcane etc. etc. 
• One of the largest irrigation system 
• One of the largest population of youth
• One of the most racially tolerant society (Washington post)
• Emotional, loving, caring, cooperating, passionate people 
• A strong joint family system
• Loving mothers 
• Respect for elders, and spirit to take their care
• Exhibit of massive resilience and courage during tough times 
• Gawadar port
• A jugaroo nation (making the lives of the people cost effective)
• The third cheapest country in the world
• One of the cheapest in health care as well
• Any calamity makes the nation united in a blink of an eye
• Natural resources, shale & natural gas, coal, oil, salt mines, precious stones & minerals 
• Lowest crime rate when seen in perspective of a ineffective & corrupt law enforcement system
• A thriving textile, sports, surgical instruments, etc. etc. 
• The biggest voluntary organization in the world operating from Pakistan: Tablighi Jamat
• One of the largest private ambulance service in the world thanks to Abdul Sattar Edhi
• Land of People like Dr. Abdul Bari (Indus Hospital), Dr. Amjad Saqib (Akhuwat), Dr. Adeeb Rizvi (SUIT Hospital), Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Dr. Israr Ahmed etc. etc. 
• Top Islamic scholars in the world are in Pakistan
• Showing top performance in various sports at international level like Hockey, Cricket, Football, Snooker, Squash, Boxing, Kabaddi, Body Building etc. despite lack of govt. support and funding. 

The Dillema of Modern Islamic Finance

By Omar Javaid

I recently participated in 10th International Conference on Islamic Finance and Economics in Doha, Qatar, one of the largest gathering of its kind. I listened/discussed my views with various top experts in the field. I also presented a paper on how Islamic concept of wealth and modern concept of capital differs with each other.

In a nut shell all the discussion on the problems and solution in the realm of Islamic Finance were revolving around the challenges emerging for misplacing knowledge of Islamic Finance in the modern western institutional framework standing on foundations completely incompatible with that of Islam! ...