Muslim scholars to deliberate on creating modern day Bait-ul-Maal

NAIROBI, KENYA: Muslim scholars are reviewing evidence collected from different parts of the country seeking to create a modern day Bait-ul-Ma’al.

This follows a continuous effort by Youth Against Rib’a (YAR) later coming together to include colleagues from across the country for the establishment of a Bait-ul-Ma’al in Kenya.

They have been going from mosque to mosque collecting signatures and explaining to the Muslims why a modern day Bait-ul-Ma’al would need to be established, what its structure would look like and the legal foundation within the Sharia’h for such as a tool to eliminate interest and also as a way to deal with many of the financial problems in the financial realm of the Muslims.

“This is a breakthrough because the problem of interest (rib’a) has not been dealt with via Sharia’h compliant banking windows or Islamic banking,” says Sheikh Mohammed Muhsin an early supporter of the initiative who has himself written a globally acclaimed ruling on the same.

“They allowed the unlawful to come in where lawful options existed and Allah ‘hasn’t made anything unlawful without giving the lawful alternative', he argues.

“The establishment of a modern day Bait-ul-Ma’al would reverberate all across the Muslim world as a solution for the problem of interest and that can be used by all Muslims anywhere” says Sheikh Ahmed Hassan Ahmed the acclaimed author of the book “We are not practicing Islam”.

The Muslims scholars drawn from across the country have given firm commitments to sit down and deliberate on the matters of the Bait-ul-Ma’al and to create its various tenants and components so as to create a functional entity.

The entity is to enable those who seek to subscribe to it as a matter of faith to come together and state that they are exercising their constitutionally granted rights under the Bill of Rights under the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

The system can also be used to avoid interest and in the long run and becomes something that creates jobs for the Muslims of Kenya by obeying the laws of Allah.