 We shall continue with our conversation on criticisms on Islamic modes of finance. There is one criticism which practitioners of Islamic banking and finance face all the time. And that is related with the benchmarking of Islamic contracts. And the criticism is that the act of benchmarking of Islamic contracts to an interest rate is exactly the same as charging interest. This is the criticism. And the criticism is based on this argument that almost all the Islamic financial products are priced with reference to an interest rate mechanism. It could be Kaibor if the product is being offered in Pakistan. It could be Klaibor if the product is in the Malaysian market. If it could be related to Saibor if the product is being bought and sold in Saudi Arabia. And it could be Laibor in the past when Laibor was being used if the product was global. Consequently, the critics argue that these products, Islamic financial products, they behave exactly the same way as their conventional counterparts. And hence, there is no difference between an Islamic financial product and a conventional financial product. Let's see if this is a valid criticism. To be fair, the statement and the argument, it seems like true, but at the same time, it is false as well. It depends on how you want to explain the things. If I look at the things from one angle, probably the statement and the criticism is valid. If I try to explain the things from another angle, the criticism could not be valid. Let's see, of course, as an advocate of Islamic banking and finance, I would like to say that this is not a valid criticism, but at the same time as an academic, I have to be independent. I have to be neutral to teach you what in my view is the right thing. This is called intellectual honesty. Now, it is true that many Islamic financial products are actually benchmarked to an interest rate. And no one can deny this fact. But benchmarking to an interest rate is not akin to interest or it's not akin to charging interest. Pricing of anything is a number. When you say that this bottle is worth 50 rupees, this 50 is a number. 50 rupees, this is the money, the note of 50 rupees which someone gives to a shopkeeper and receives a bottle of coke in return. This 50 rupees note in your pocket, in my pocket too, this is not haraam. If it is haraam, then you throw it away. So money as a medium of exchange and as a legal tender is neither halal nor haraam. It's only a medium of exchange. This is something we should keep in mind when we are referring to this criticism regarding benchmarking of Islamic financial products to interest rate. Money is actually a medium of exchange and whatever is being exchanged, i.e. the object of sale, this is important. Price is only relevant in terms of certain rules regarding price, i.e. price should be known. If price is deferred, the payment schedule should be known and agreed between the two parties and so on. If the subject matter is halal, then the transaction is okay. If the subject matter is haraam, then the transaction is not okay. It's haraam as well. The subject matter is that whatever you are selling, I am talking about that. For example, poor is haraam, chicken is halal. If you want to buy and sell poor, you can do it from Muraabah, from a spot sale, from Salam. If you want to force the most strong Islamic contract, then that transaction would be haraam. In case of halal chicken, if you are buying and selling it on spot, this is okay. If you are buying and selling it on Salam basis, on Muraabah basis, that is acceptable as well. So car, home or any other items sold by Islamic banks, these are halal items. They are just priced with reference to an interest rate benchmark. Let's consider an interesting example. There is a party A, the person goes to a dhukan and buys a bottle of Guinness. Guinness Book of Records, you have heard of it. The sponsor of Guinness is actually a company which is an Irish company. The Irish people love Guinness very much. Anyway, the person, party A goes to a shop and buys a can of Guinness for 550 rupees. Party B goes to the same shop. This is George Bernard Shaw's shop. This is a shop of non-Muslims. The same cabinet or fridge and chiller, there will be a Kandhari Anar juice pack. The price of that is, he asks, what is the price of party B from the shop? He says, it is as much as Guinness. Of course, party B looks at this one of 550 rupees. Now, because the prices are the same, Guinness is not the same. Does it make Anar juice haraam? Not at all. And the shopkeeper, even while pricing this Anar juice can have this thing in mind that I'm going to price it exactly the same as Guinness can. It would not make the Anar juice haraam because its price is determined with reference to another non-sharia item. So similarly, an Islamic home financing product priced with reference to interest rate mechanism does not make the transaction haraam. This is something we should understand very clearly. Similarity of number does not mean rental becomes interest rate. So this is true in case of home financing products. This is true in case of car financing products and this is true for all the capital markets products because benchmarking to a non-sharia rate of return is acceptable from a Sharia viewpoint. The people who make this criticism, they actually are not aware of this Tikhi principle.