Imran Khan and Xi Jinping

The New Asian Era

Khan’s victory speech resonated with the hearts of millions of viewers. This was clearly a speech from the heart with just the right things said at just the right time. Of most interest was the concept of ‘governance with care’ – a reminder of some long forgotten ancient virtues that were the founding principles of the East.

This idea of “governance with care” is a template based on the virtues of compassion, care and generosity and is a reminder of our Prophet’s S.A.W words. It resurrects Madina for us but also echoes Confucius’ teachings. Confucius stated that virtue should permeate over political and economic structures. Central to Confucius’ thinking is the concept of virtue, known as “Ren”. Ren, is a complex idea, very similar to what we call “rahma”, which could be translated as “genuine or transcendental care”. Perhaps the closest approach in terms of Western terminology would what Heidegger called Sorge, which is often translated as ‘authentic care’.

Since the emergence of the Chinese President Xi Jinping, a new governing ideal has also appeared what Jinping refers to as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. In this new socialism Confucius has been reinstated. Since the West rejected or refused to understand Heidegger’s Sorge it is likely that they will also fail to understand the revolutionary meaning of President Xi Jinping’s “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” but we should not fail to recognize its meaning. It represents a renewal in the world of domestic and international politics in which the heart places “ren” above reason. In contrast the West redefined ‘virtue as reason instead of compassion’, and argued that “rational action” leads to the greatest good. When they realised that reason was in fact amoral they rewrote history, and morality was reinvented along the lines of pragmatism where profit became the seal of moral superiority.

Over 2,500 years ago Confucius wrote: “The profit of a nation is not to make profit, the profit of a nation is balance (fair play)”. He reminded his people that a nation can only prosper, not when few profit, but when fair play allows the entire nation to grow. It means to recognise the value of community and the value of the individual and the balance between them. The individual and community cannot exist or grow without each other. In this balance or the lack of it rests the real great divergence between East and West.

The new Silk Route is our way forward to bring prosperity to the world i.e. trading with Islamic characteristics

Since 4000 years until the conquest of Bengal in the late 18th century, the combined value of the economies of China and Hindustan represented more than 50% of the GDP of the world. At that time Bengal alone was 12% of the world’s GDP of the world, compared to a mere 2% of Britain. China and Hindustan prospered without colonizing other countries. British colonisation based its fortune on ravaging the rest of the world, politics based on greed and theft, a rationale built on western structuralism. Today the West is declining by the measure of their own empirical data. And they are worried. By the year 2040, the combined GDP of China and the Subcontinent will be again more than 50% of the world’s GDP.

The appeal to our wonderful Madinan history, is to reinstate “governance with Islamic characteristics”. To care for the poor cannot be translated as a mere patchwork project but represents a way of looking at the world. To reinstate Madina means to put the structures at the service of the people and not the people at the service of the structures.

The Economy of Madina is the practice (‘amal) of the people of Madina, this is known as muamalat. Muamalat is not a legal construct, but a living model that has a living history from the days of our Prophet S.A.W. This model is essentially a trading model in which capital plays a subsidiary role to labour, and money on its own produces no interest. Muamalat is based upon a key institution: the market-place (open market), which is publicly owned (waqf) in the same way as mosques. The open (or public) market in Islam guarantees the free access of all people to trade. Without this open marketplace trading cannot exist, instead it is replaced by distribution. This is an important distinction.

Our Prophet S.A.W, was a caravan trader. The caravan was a guild of traders. In the Muslim world, Guilds represented the main mode of production. Members shared means of production and liabilities. Each member vouched for the other. This created a model of credit worthiness based on reputation, honor and good behaviour. Not on capital collateral. The contract of trade finance of the caravans was known as qirad or mudharaba. This contract prohibited collateral (which Islamic banks refuse to accept today). Finance without collateral was the key factor of the spectacular trade expansion of Madina. Qirad is considered a turning point in trade history by modern economic historians like Braudel, and a finance innovation born in Islam.

Caravanserai is a reserved zone in our public markets for the foreign traders. The caravanserais existed all along the Silk Route. They improved the life of all the local people by offering trading interaction with the world. Often caravanserais turned into cities.

Between Pakistan and China and between our Madinan model and Confucius’ ideals, CPEC is our opportunity to revive the trading economy of Madina. Instead of looking to the West we should look to China. The new Silk Route is our way forward to bring prosperity to the world i.e. trading with Islamic characteristics. This is trading with the ‘ren’ of Confucius. Fair trading for all the people. The Prophet S.A.W said: “9/10 of the provision comes from trading”. Erego: the prosperity of our nation is in trading. That is the CPEC and BRI with caravanserais.

And finally, what is the welfare state of Madina? Madina produced the best welfare system in the history of the world: Zakat. Zakat is far superior to the Ponzi scheme of western social security systems based on future taxation. Zakat is real, it is factual and it is comprehensive. Zakat is not charity. It is not given, it is taken. It is not voluntary, it is obligatory. Zakat will cover all our needs. But we need real zakat: the zakat of all people, all businesses and all mines, including the zakat of oil and gas that our Gulf Arab brothers have conveniently forgotten. Then, under the direct, central authority and personal responsibility of the leader of the nation yet, independent from State bureaucracy- zakat must be dispersed immediately and directly to its beneficiaries as it is in our tradition. Zakat will not pay for hospitals, or bridges, or madrassas. Islamic tradition provides examples of other means within the civil society to cover those necessities. Zakat is for people and only for people. And zakat must be paid in real money, that is, gold dinar and silver dirham (but this only few can fully understand). That is the zakat of Madina.

We loved the speech of Imran Khan but we fear Imran’s hearty desires will be dragged down by the structuralism of the State machinery. And therefore we ask him emphatically: Imran, govern us with your heart! Govern us with virtue.