RSS and Muslim Awkaf in India
It is interesting to speculate why RSS intellectuals have gone all the way to a Turkish Muslim intellectual, to pick issues with Islamic economics. In the last para of the following Book Review by 2 RSS luminaries, Prafull Goradia and KR Phanda, published in RSS controlled English newspaper, The Pioneer, allow the cat to jump out of the bag.
It is their and RSS worries, that since Sachar Commission has indentified Muslim Awqaf in India, that can form the center piece of Muslim economic revival, there is a big threat to Hindutva forces, who have tried every trick in the trade, to weaken Indian Muslim, both economically as well as politically, so that the natural leaders of Indian subcontinent, may not displace them once again as the rulers of the region.
That fear in the psyche of Hindutva forces has been with them right from the very beginning of the establishment of RSS back in 1925.
It must be admitted that they had been exceptionally successful in their covert and overt subversion conspiracies against Indian Muslims.
The present article is like a shot in the dark, but is indicative of their line of thinking on Muslim Awkaf in India. One hopes, Muslim thinkers like Salman Khursheed, will keep abreast of the developments and in their zeal to present themselves as 'secular' do not press Congress-led UPA to follow policies, that will nationalise Muslim Awqaf, rather than liberate it from bureaucratic stranglehold to be available for Indian Muslims' economic revival.
Salman Khursheed's off the cuff remark that Muslim Awkaf's objectives do not restrict it to only Muslims, gives out the flaw in his thinking and Muslims will be most vigilant over his further moves, that may or will frustrate their hopes and aspirations, for release of Awqaf to the exclusive control and welfare of the community.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
-----------------
http://www.dailypioneer.com/
The book analyses why Muslim nations were late in adopting modern economy, say Prafull Goradia & KR Phanda
The Long Divergence
Author: Timur Kuran
Publisher: Princeton University,
Price: $29.95
The final message of Allah was delivered by Prophet Mohammed in Arabia some 1,400 years ago. The infallibility of Islam is universally accepted by momins (faithfuls) who believe that nothing in the Quran or the Hadith can be questioned. The loyalty to the religion is so overriding that even the Ahmadiyas like Sir Mohammed Zafarullah Khan or Abdul Qadir Khan, although expelled from Islam, would not write anything remotely critical about the religion.
Compared to the enormous literature on the religion of Islam, very few books have been published about the economic performance of different Islamic nations. The book, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East, by Timur Kuran, an American Muslim and a leading expert on Islamic economic institutions, is a thought-provoking attempt to analyse the factors responsible for the persistent underdevelopment of Islamic countries in West Asia that include the Arabs, Iran, Turkey and the Balkans. In the author’s words, the region, “at the start of the third millennium, is widely considered an economic laggard, and plethora of statistics support this consensus”.
The region fell behind the West mainly because it was late in adopting key institutions of modern economy. According to the author, the areas that have played a critical role in inhibiting the growth process are: Frozen waqf assets, atomistic financial markets and courts unsuited to the development of impersonal exchange.
In the last chapter, “Did Islam Inhibit Economic Development?”, Prof Kuran says: “Of the institutions that played prominent roles in West Asia’s slip into underdevelopment, several are traceable to Islam’s canonical Age of Felicity — the Quranic rules of inheritance, the permissibility of polygamy, the ban on riba (interest), the absence of the concept of corporation, the choice of law for non-Muslim merchant organisations.”
For two reasons, the setting up of waqf was preferred over the establishment of Western-oriented corporations: Generosity and Prestige were the motives. The founder of the waqf could appoint himself as mutawalli (caretaker), set his own salary, appoint relatives to paid positions, and designate his successors. Thus, the founder could bypass Islam’s inheritance regulations. The static perpetuity principle of the waqf made the founder more secure, since waqf was the property of Allah. In addition, distressed rulers were less likely to confiscate waqf assets. Thus, the institution of waqf served as a wealth shelter. These advantages of waqf became a handicap in the age of industrialisation.
The institution of madarsas, set up and run by waqf, has also contributed to the persistence of underdevelopment of the region. In this context, the author says: “Whatever the motives underlying the waqf’s characteristic features, they produced inefficiency.” One needs to differentiate between the the colleges established as waqf-financed madarsas and those founded contemporaneously as universities in the West. Both Paris (1180) and Oxford (1249) were founded as trusts and quickly became self-governing and self-renewing organisations. In contrast, the madarsas in West Asia soon turned into intellectual backwaters. The author feels that unless these handicaps are removed, there is little chance for Islamic countries to become as prosperous as the West.
Prof Kuran also focuses on Islamic laws concerning business partnerships and inheritance. He argues that these came in the way of the growth of modern industrial corporations. The incidence of polygamy among the wealthiest Muslims prevented the process of business consolidation. All these factors made West Asian merchants uncompetitive.
Currently, some Islamic countries might be prospering on petro-dollars. This, however, would not last forever. These nations suffer from gender discrimination, knowledge deficit and lack of well-developed political institutions. The deficiencies are being highlighted in the Human Development Reports brought out by the United Nations and other specialised agencies. One of the common features of such reports is that birth rates in the Islamic countries are far higher than those in the West. Such high birth rates neutralise the efforts to raise the standards of living in Islamic countries.
Given the above historical experience of Islamic countries, the recommendations of the Sachar Committee make little sense. The committee has called for the strengthening of Islamic institutions like waqf. Incidentally, Muslim countries like Turkey have abolished them. When princely states, zamindaris and jagirdaris have been abolished, one fails to understand the reasons for their existence in India. Based on the Sachar Committee’s recommendations, Muslims are now demanding the establishment of a Central Madarsas Board on the lines of CBSE and the acceptance of its certificates for purposes of admission to colleges in the country. The level of education imparted by these institutions can in no way be compared to that provided by the schools affiliated to the CBSE.
Our pseudo-seculars need to read this book.
It is interesting to speculate why RSS intellectuals have gone all the way to a Turkish Muslim intellectual, to pick issues with Islamic economics. In the last para of the following Book Review by 2 RSS luminaries, Prafull Goradia and KR Phanda, published in RSS controlled English newspaper, The Pioneer, allow the cat to jump out of the bag.
It is their and RSS worries, that since Sachar Commission has indentified Muslim Awqaf in India, that can form the center piece of Muslim economic revival, there is a big threat to Hindutva forces, who have tried every trick in the trade, to weaken Indian Muslim, both economically as well as politically, so that the natural leaders of Indian subcontinent, may not displace them once again as the rulers of the region.
That fear in the psyche of Hindutva forces has been with them right from the very beginning of the establishment of RSS back in 1925.
It must be admitted that they had been exceptionally successful in their covert and overt subversion conspiracies against Indian Muslims.
The present article is like a shot in the dark, but is indicative of their line of thinking on Muslim Awkaf in India. One hopes, Muslim thinkers like Salman Khursheed, will keep abreast of the developments and in their zeal to present themselves as 'secular' do not press Congress-led UPA to follow policies, that will nationalise Muslim Awqaf, rather than liberate it from bureaucratic stranglehold to be available for Indian Muslims' economic revival.
Salman Khursheed's off the cuff remark that Muslim Awkaf's objectives do not restrict it to only Muslims, gives out the flaw in his thinking and Muslims will be most vigilant over his further moves, that may or will frustrate their hopes and aspirations, for release of Awqaf to the exclusive control and welfare of the community.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
-----------------
http://www.dailypioneer.com/
The Pioneer
Why Islam failed economically
Monday, 28 November 2011 15:07 pioneerThe book analyses why Muslim nations were late in adopting modern economy, say Prafull Goradia & KR Phanda
The Long Divergence
Author: Timur Kuran
Publisher: Princeton University,
Price: $29.95
The final message of Allah was delivered by Prophet Mohammed in Arabia some 1,400 years ago. The infallibility of Islam is universally accepted by momins (faithfuls) who believe that nothing in the Quran or the Hadith can be questioned. The loyalty to the religion is so overriding that even the Ahmadiyas like Sir Mohammed Zafarullah Khan or Abdul Qadir Khan, although expelled from Islam, would not write anything remotely critical about the religion.
Compared to the enormous literature on the religion of Islam, very few books have been published about the economic performance of different Islamic nations. The book, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East, by Timur Kuran, an American Muslim and a leading expert on Islamic economic institutions, is a thought-provoking attempt to analyse the factors responsible for the persistent underdevelopment of Islamic countries in West Asia that include the Arabs, Iran, Turkey and the Balkans. In the author’s words, the region, “at the start of the third millennium, is widely considered an economic laggard, and plethora of statistics support this consensus”.
The region fell behind the West mainly because it was late in adopting key institutions of modern economy. According to the author, the areas that have played a critical role in inhibiting the growth process are: Frozen waqf assets, atomistic financial markets and courts unsuited to the development of impersonal exchange.
In the last chapter, “Did Islam Inhibit Economic Development?”, Prof Kuran says: “Of the institutions that played prominent roles in West Asia’s slip into underdevelopment, several are traceable to Islam’s canonical Age of Felicity — the Quranic rules of inheritance, the permissibility of polygamy, the ban on riba (interest), the absence of the concept of corporation, the choice of law for non-Muslim merchant organisations.”
For two reasons, the setting up of waqf was preferred over the establishment of Western-oriented corporations: Generosity and Prestige were the motives. The founder of the waqf could appoint himself as mutawalli (caretaker), set his own salary, appoint relatives to paid positions, and designate his successors. Thus, the founder could bypass Islam’s inheritance regulations. The static perpetuity principle of the waqf made the founder more secure, since waqf was the property of Allah. In addition, distressed rulers were less likely to confiscate waqf assets. Thus, the institution of waqf served as a wealth shelter. These advantages of waqf became a handicap in the age of industrialisation.
The institution of madarsas, set up and run by waqf, has also contributed to the persistence of underdevelopment of the region. In this context, the author says: “Whatever the motives underlying the waqf’s characteristic features, they produced inefficiency.” One needs to differentiate between the the colleges established as waqf-financed madarsas and those founded contemporaneously as universities in the West. Both Paris (1180) and Oxford (1249) were founded as trusts and quickly became self-governing and self-renewing organisations. In contrast, the madarsas in West Asia soon turned into intellectual backwaters. The author feels that unless these handicaps are removed, there is little chance for Islamic countries to become as prosperous as the West.
Prof Kuran also focuses on Islamic laws concerning business partnerships and inheritance. He argues that these came in the way of the growth of modern industrial corporations. The incidence of polygamy among the wealthiest Muslims prevented the process of business consolidation. All these factors made West Asian merchants uncompetitive.
Currently, some Islamic countries might be prospering on petro-dollars. This, however, would not last forever. These nations suffer from gender discrimination, knowledge deficit and lack of well-developed political institutions. The deficiencies are being highlighted in the Human Development Reports brought out by the United Nations and other specialised agencies. One of the common features of such reports is that birth rates in the Islamic countries are far higher than those in the West. Such high birth rates neutralise the efforts to raise the standards of living in Islamic countries.
Given the above historical experience of Islamic countries, the recommendations of the Sachar Committee make little sense. The committee has called for the strengthening of Islamic institutions like waqf. Incidentally, Muslim countries like Turkey have abolished them. When princely states, zamindaris and jagirdaris have been abolished, one fails to understand the reasons for their existence in India. Based on the Sachar Committee’s recommendations, Muslims are now demanding the establishment of a Central Madarsas Board on the lines of CBSE and the acceptance of its certificates for purposes of admission to colleges in the country. The level of education imparted by these institutions can in no way be compared to that provided by the schools affiliated to the CBSE.
Our pseudo-seculars need to read this book.
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