From the desk of Sadid Quraishi

Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (also referred to as Tantawy, Arabic : محمد سيد طنطاوى‎) (28 October 1928 – 10 March 2010) was the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar University died in Jeddah , Saudi Arabia and burried in Medinah . Charging interest on loans In 1989 the Egyptian government's support for Western-style, interest-based banks (long considered anathema by Muslim scholars as usury, or riba) was under siege by the expanding Islamic finance movement. In response to a government request for a ruling, Tantawy (then Grand Mufti of Egypt ) issued a fatwa that described some forms of financial interest as tolerable- among them, those paid by government bonds and those on ordinary savings accounts. He declared that charging interest on such bank loans was in fact ribh, or just gaining profit, which was allowable. This eventually allowed the development of a mortgage industry. However, his ruling did not issue as an effectual decree. Tantawy’s rational...

                                                                                              From the desk of Sadid Quraishi                                                                                 Special report about dharna (Sit in) & protests in Pakistan & world     PART I          Protests against...