KUALA LUMPUR 3 Nov. – Sultan of Perak, Sultan Muizzuddin Nazrin Shah said Islamic countries have the power to change the future of their people and to bridge the worrying humanitarian funding gap.
Speaking at a dinner in conjunction with the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) here today, HE Sultan of Perak, Sultan Muizzuddin Nazrin said that changes must take place rapidly if there is to be strong cooperation between Islamic countries by exploring innovative ways to fund management and development programs for humanitarian crises.
HE said that failure to find new solutions was leading nations into continued crisis thereby hampering development, with more than 50% of the less developed countries face humanitarian crises.
HE added that the Muslim world can no longer be a passive spectator in the ‘theatre’ of global finance but should have financial autonomy that would enable Muslims to live and develop with dignity.
“We will continue to deal with the situation of inadequate financial resources to meet the increasing demand for assistance.
“Therefore, we need to bridge and reconcile the gap between supply and demand. To be effective and sustainable it will require understanding, commitment, and cooperation in various aspects as well as a need for new and creative thinking to achieve solutions,” he said.
Raja Nazrin said Muslim countries need to restructure their moral ‘compass’ and return to the five core principles of Islamic faith such as unity through tawheed (oneness of God), universality through fitrah (human nature) and human dignity, social empowerment through oversight or caliphates, social justice through fairness and changing relationships, and love through the attribute of Rahman and Raheem (mercy). These five principles can be translated into an operational moral and ethical Islamic social finance system to address the very serious needs. To this end, an independent body should be established to help coordinate and implement funds for humanitarian aid, he said.
“An Islamic Development Bank has to play a key role for the Islamic world to move forward in support of humanitarian funds for the Islamic community.
“I also call to expedite pilot projects among humanitarian agencies with the leaders of the member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in order to turn moral thought into action.
“We have the opportunity through WIEF as well as the coming World Humanitarian Summit session to re-position Islamic social financing as a force for worldwide good,” he said.
Also present were the Raja Permaisuri Perak Tuanku Zara Salim, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, and the WIEF Foundation Chairman Tun Musa Hitam.
This article was published at Utusan Malaysia newspaper on 3rd November 2015.
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