Remembering Indian Economist Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqi, the Father of Islamic Banking
By
Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef, New Age Islam
28 November
2022
Dr. Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqui Firmly
Believed That The Period During Which Islamic Movements Developed And Operated
Was Unique And Different
------
Dr. Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi
(August 1931 - November 2022)
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Dr.
Nejatullah Siddiqi was an economist, but he was also a man of wisdom and
original thought. This succinct essay picks out a few important ideas from his
views and musings.
Professor
Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqi, 91, passed away in San Jose, California, the United
States, where he was staying with his three sons and two daughters, on November
12, 2022. He was receiving therapy for Parkinson's disease for four years.
Born to a
humble family in a small town, Padrauna in Gorakhpur UP in 1931. Siddiqi
initially was educated in Gorakhpur and was exposed to Jamaat-e-Islami culture
and literature at a young age. After earning a high school degree from
Gorakhpur, he was admitted to AMU in 1949. However, very active, vigil,
youthfully enthusiastic, and yet disillusioned with the college education,
which religious zealots refer to as the "killing fields of nations,"
he met with the top brass of the Jamaat and persuaded them to open some sort of
alternative education for him and his colleagues by saying, "We are all
disillusioned by college education, have forsaken our careers and have come to
you to educate us in the sources of Islam."
On his
insistence and persuasion, Sanwi Darasgah at Rampur, where the centre of the
Jamaat was housed then, came into existence in 1950 and continued until 1960.
In the first batch of it, there were Nejatullah Siddiqi, Abdulhaq Ansari, Qazi
Ashfaq, Rau Irfan Ahmad Khan, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, et al. It was a unique
and very fruitful crash course under which these enthusiastic youth went on
learning and engaging with old as well as new realities. After five years of
rigorous endeavours, Dr. Najatullah earned excellence in Arabic and Islamic
sciences, and along with that, he studied for six months at Madrasa-tul-Islah
Azamgarh too. Maulana Sadruddin Islahi, a prolific writer and ideologue of the
Jamaat was among his teachers too.
After the
completion of this intensive course now, there was a question of how to adjust
these brilliant young minds and how to utilize them. What the Jamaat was
offering was not fulfilling their aspirations at all, so the young and bright
Siddiqi did not hesitate to argue with the elders on this matter. When somebody
among the Jamaat officials harshly commented, "you have no market
value," he decided to go ahead on his own and re-joined AMU and earned his
Master's and then Ph.D. in economics from this prestigious seat of learning in
1966. Furthermore, he got a lectureship at the department of Economic Studies
and became a professor in Islamic Studies in 1977. In October 1978, he joined
the prestigious King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as a professor
of Economics and retired from it in 1986. Dr. Siddiqi was awarded the Faisal
prize in 1981 for his profound and pioneering works in Islamic Economy.
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Also
Read: Violence, Islam And The Islamic Movement: Can
Terrorism Be At All Justified In Islam? - Part 1
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Works:
Dr.
Nejatullah's accomplishments include approximately 49 volumes in both English
and Urdu, as well as some impressive translations from Arabic into Urdu. The
most well-known is "Banking without Interest," which was released in
over 30 different versions between 1973 and 2022. Ten further well-known
seminal works in this area can be found among his other English writings. (For
the details: see Aslam Abdullah: Dr. Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi: The
father of Modern Islamic Banking
And in
Urdu: Tehreek-e-Islami(Islamic Movement) in the Present Age, Islam in the
21st Century, Muslims and Tehreek-e-Islami, Maqasid Shariat (Objectives of
Shariah),
The
Economic System of Islam, Implementation of Islamic Guidelines in Finance and
Economy, Islam and Muslims, Theory of Property in Islam
Interest-free
Banking, Insurance in Islamic Economy, etc. have become very popular.
He
received two major awards for his work: King Faisal International Prize for service
to Islamic Studies and Shah Waliullah Award by a New Delhi-based NGO, the IOS,
for his contribution to Islamic Economics.
Economics
is an arid subject, but Najat Saheb also had the highest taste for literature,
so he wrote many stories in Urdu. A collection of his fiction writings was also
published.
As I am not
an economist and do not have factual information, I leave it to economists and
researchers in this field to criticize, evaluate and analyse his achievements
and flaws in this respect. Here what concerns me most is Nejatullah, the thinker,
observer, and a man of ideas pertaining to current political situations.
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Also
Read: Violence, Islam And The Islamic Movement: Can
Terrorism Be At All Justified In Islam? -Part 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Najatullah
the Thinker:
Dr.
Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqui firmly believed that the period during which
Islamic movements developed and operated was unique and different. They have
completed their assigned tasks. The generation of today should think itself
freely and should contribute its part of obligation. The time of Syed Qutub or
Maulana Maududi is long past.
The
expectations of today are different. People today need to develop new methods
of working with Ijtihad and an open mind while taking into account the
exponentially changing conditions around the world. In the following lines, I
want to draw the reader's attention to a few relevant points and issues of
Islamic thought in which the thinker Najatullah gave his opinions utterly
different from other scholars and Islamists. His intellectual connection indeed
remained with Jamaat-e-Islami, but his point of view was never orthodox. He
wasn't a supremacist either; rather, he believed in civilizational dialogues
and interfaith understanding. This is why the Jamaat's most stubborn religious
faction never accepted his views. Not only that, but when his book
'Maqasid-e-Shariat' (Objectives of Shariah) was published, some members of the
top leadership of Jamaat campaigned against him secretly. The people of
Jamaat-e-Islami do not even, by mistake, mention new ideas and opinions of
Najat Saheb because they may harm the core agenda of the Jamaat. In my view,
these are very important issues.
Siddiqi was
a charismatic individual. He conversed with scholars, laypeople, and
intellectuals alike. He would pay close attention to any participant in events
like seminars, symposia, or debates, read his mind, and then try to provide a
satisfactory response. His interviews were published in Afkar e Milli,
the news and views publication I edited back in Delhi until 2018. I conducted
two Urdu interviews with him. In addition, I spoke with him, wrote emails to
him, and met him several times. His arguments always were satisfying to me.
On Islamic
Thought, he has written on the behest of some Islamic Fiqh Academy India
officials a booklet in Urdu called: فکراسلامی:چند
توجہ طلب مسائل
(Islamic Thought: Issues requiring attention ) printed several times with his
revision and addition of new relevant points.
Apart from
this, another magnum opus of his writings is a Collection of Letters on Islamic
Literature, Economics, and Islam, in Urdu.اسلام معاشيات
خطوط اورادب
In this
book, he also argued on certain particular subjects with Maulana Maududi, Ali
Miyan Nadwi, Wahiduddin Khan, Irfan Ahmad, and with a galaxy of writers,
researchers, Ulama, muftis, and the common man.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also
Read: Violence, Islam And The Islamic Movement: Can
Terrorism Be At All Justified In Islam? - Part 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1-Need
to Address Common Concerns:
To him,
many issues and problems have become a common concern for humankind, such as
global warming, climate change, poverty, disease, pandemics, etc. That is why
all humanity is required to come to a platform and exchange their common
concerns cutting across religious and cultural limits and party lines, as the
life support system will be doomed in coming times, and the whole of humanity
will suffer.
2-Consistency
in Thought and Practice:
He says
that it is not proper that Muslims in minority countries, invoking secularism
and human rights, always take one stand for themselves while deny these rights
for non-Muslims in the Muslim majority countries. It is unethical and
hypocritical.
3-His
Stand on Nuclear Proliferation:
Dr. Nejat
vehemently opposed nuclear proliferation for purely Islamic, moral, and ethical
reasons, regardless of any justifications. We must resist such actions since
they are dangerous for all of humanity and go against what Islam stands for to
possess such weapons. Other Ulama and thinkers defend having this kind of
armament for Muslims on the grounds of deterrence.
4-New
Cosmology:
In light of
the new cosmology, which is based primarily on the Darwinian theory of
evolution, Siddiqi asserted that Muslim theology needs to take a fresh look at
the relevant verses of the Quran, reconsider its position, and attempt to
reinterpret the text to suit the times. This is because it is an academic issue
related to search and research rather than a matter of dogmatic faith, and
Muslims have debated all such questions in their brilliant intellectual legacy.
For instance, we can trace the roots of evolution theory in the works of Ibn
Misquwah, Rumi and others.
5-Women
Empowerment:
Dr.
Nejatullah asks how can a people develop and go ahead in economic terms when
half of its population (read women) is totally out of active participation in
productive life. Referring to the active role Muslim women had played in the
Prophetic era and the eras that followed, he strongly made a case for the
empowerment of Muslim women in modern times.
6-Exploitation
of Violence for Islam:
In one of
his rather lengthy Urdu essays published in monthly Zindagi-Nau Siddiqi
deliberated on violence. Does it fit a Muslim or an Islamic organization to use
violence as a tool to terrorize enemies, adversaries, and opponents and
strategically kill innocent civilians? His answer was: absolutely not. In this
respect, he condemned all the suicide attacks and extremists' assaults on
innocent civilians. He was very categorical, while other Islamists use many ifs
and buts regarding this tricky question, giving a sort of legitimacy to
violence committed in the name of Islam.
7:
Religious Freedom
The late
Siddiqi was all for religious freedom to everyone as the holy book itself
sanctions it: (لكم دينكم ولي دين) For you, your religion, and
for me mine. Hence,
the penalty for mere apostasy should be reconsidered as there is sufficient
evidence suggesting that the matter was also a debatable one among the holy
companions and their followers (Tabieen).
8-Quran
for All:
Quran is
addressed to everyone. It is an obligation of every individual to read and
understand it. It is not privileged for only Ulama and scholars to understand
and interpret the holy book as it is claimed by them in their vanity. However,
the level of understanding of a layman certainly may differ from the level of
Ulama. However, Ulama have no right to stop the average person from
understanding the Quran and exploring its insights as they normally do.
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Also
Read: Violence, Islam And The Islamic Movement: Can
Terrorism Be At All Justified In Islam? - Part 4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Nejat
was a unique individual who stood up for moral principles and rejected
traditional dogmas.
------
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Dr.
Mohammad Ghitreef is a Research Associate with the Centre for Promotion of
Educational and Cultural Advancement of Muslims of India, AMU Aligarh.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/indian-economist-najatullah-islamic-banking/d/128507
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