Chairman of Institute of Policy Studies Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmad said the developing world currently owes a total of $3.242 trillion to the richest countries of the world.
He was delivering a World Debt Day lecture at the University of Birmingham, says Press release issued here. The Islamic Relief, UK, in conjunction with the Jubilee Debt Campaign and the University of Birmingham, had organised the event.
Professor Khurshid said 1963 for household debt in the United Kingdom was £9 billion; a figure that by 1997 had increased to £780 billion. This amount has since broken through the £1 trillion mark, he added.
Professor Ahmad demonstrated that the richest one per cent of the world earn as much as the bottom 57 per cent. He also showed how the incomes of 25 million people in the US, are equal to the total income of 2 billion of the worlds poorest people; that is that 25 million people at the top earn the same amount as a third of the world.
The scholar in his lecture also presented the Islamic principles to solve the world's problems; mechanisms promoting morality and social consciousness.
He said the abolition of usury and interest, a requirement of all of the three major world religions, necessary as the first step towards rectifying decades of inequity.
He also referred tot the Holy Qur'an: Believers, take not doubled and redoubled interest, and fear god so that you may prosper. (Surah al-Imran, verse 130).
He also referred to another verse of the holy Quran regarding the interest interest; saying: ..."if you do not (give up interest remaining outstanding), then be sure of being at war with god and his messenger." (Surah al-Baqarah, verse 278-279).
The abolition of interest is only one of a whole measure of steps needed over the long term which would start to redress the balance, he observed.
This is a vision of the unjust reality of how the banking system works, with banks maintaining no responsibility to ensure that they lend responsibly. The Islamic system as Professor Ahmad explained was much more just.
If the lender lends money for a successful venture, they would get their money back, but if the venture fails they would lose part or potentially all of the money lent.
The solution needs, according to Professor Ahmad, a new comprehensive approach and broad-based policy package; nothing less than a new economic world order.
Professor Khurshid also confidently asserted that if the united under this common cause, the people could have as much power to effect change as the politicians. It was for the first time that this lecture was delivered by a Muslim economist.