Community Based Financial Solutions : An Inspiring Talk by Dr. Shariq Nisar

As the sun slipped into the horizon last Saturday evening, the Biomedical Auditorium at St Pius College campus came alive with scores of professionals from various parts of the financial capital attending the PSF bi-monthly convention along with their families to listen to one of the stalwarts of Islamic finance, Dr. Shariq Nisar, on the topic “Community based financial solutions – current efforts and future prospects”.

Dr. Shariq Nisar, who has pioneered various concepts of Shariah compliant modern day investments and re-insurances, began by walking us through the journey of community based financial profit and non-profit institutions and the academic work that has been done since 1920, while highlighting their important milestones.

He spoke of the difficulties and challenges faced by Muslim individuals, groups and institutions in India since the late seventies, who were on the one hand trying to prove the practicality of Shariah compliant businesses and on other hand trying to bail out the community as a whole from the financial crisis, deploying easily available finances within the Ummah. Dr Shariq also highlighted the fact that most of the work on Islamic finance took place in our country, due to the available wide spectrum of market.

Carrying out SWOT analysis of Islamic Finance in India, Dr Shariq lamented that the Indian Muslim community is presently not geared up to brace and run the systematic Shariah compliant financial institutions in our country, which has tremendous potential and untapped financial resources.

He underscored the fact that there exists a substantial chunk of Muslims who look for sharing profit without having to go through the pain and risk involved. Another underlying problem he tapped into was the lethargy of Indian Muslim businessmen when it came to proper accounting, recording and replying to the concerns of stakeholders, which is the very basic requirement of Shariah compliant business houses.

He stressed upon the idea that the organizers of Islamic financial institutions need to look for passing on the worldly benefits to stakeholders and keep their own profits for the hereafter.

The concept of Takaful was comprehensively explained by Dr. Shariq citing a few instances from the life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and the Rightly guided Caliphs. He explained that Shariah compliant re-insurance is not life (or death) insurance but a means to overcome the calamities, accidents and medical emergencies and briefly introduced the concept.

Dr. Nisar advised the audience to promote the existing investment options that are meant to cater to Muslims but are not advertised as such. He cited the examples of Tata and Taurus that have ethical funds. He also encouraged the audience to ask their banks whenever they call up for investments whether they have halal products; this he said would create an awareness and demand for halal investment products and compel the existing financial institutions to come up with the same, just as has been the case with the food industry.

The question answer session was interesting; participants asked the questions ranging from medical insurance, life insurance, interest free home loans, regulatory bodies, sharia complaint investment opportunities, Ponzi schemes etc. The learned speaker discussed each topic at length and inspired the audience to take concrete steps towards the evolution of viable model, he stressed on teaming up as groups, learning the detailed Islamic financial system along with its intricacies and getting started on our own is the road map towards successful operations and thus demonstration of Islamic economic system in our country.

After the session, PSF Convener informed about the upcoming initiatives and ongoing activities in the backdrop like Expert sessions in professional colleges, WES (Weekend education support), Kafalat etc.., a sumptuous dinner was served to the attending professionals and their accompanying family members and everyone departed with a new vigor, motivation and commitment to support PSF and contribute towards the cause championed by it.