NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Half of global poverty resides in Muslim world while the Muslim population is 24% of the total global population, if the dangerously increasing poverty in the Muslim community is not controlled soon then it will be alarming. These concerns were addressed by Muhammad Zubair Mughal, Chief Executive Officer, AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics while speaking at Islamic Microfinance Symposium held at Tunis and organized by Tunis Association of Islamic Economics with association of Islamic Development Bank(IDB) and German Donor Agency GIZ.

He mentioned the various causes of rapidly increasing poverty in the Muslim world i.e. lack ofeducation, lack of employment political instability and so on. But on the other hand, the main hitch is unavailability of the proper financial products, which are in line with the Muslim’s religious values and social norms. Micro financing is not utilized by Muslim population due to interest and thus is excluded from financial inclusion.