Islamic Microfinance: Sustainable Poverty Alleviation for the Muslim Poor
![handle is hein.journals/cpilj11 and id is 279 raw text is: Islamic Microfinance: Sustainable Poverty
Alleviation for the Muslim Poor
BETSY WALTERSt
I. INTRODUCTION
At the end of 2010, despite long-fought, multi-lateral wars on poverty
and billions of dollars in aid to poverty-stricken countries, half of the
world's population-over three billion people-was still living below the
poverty line.' These people know a world where 22,000 children under age
five die every day as a direct result of poverty;2 a world where the poor are
considered unbankable by conventional financial services structures that
are built to serve only those who already have funds; a world where the
poorest 40 percent of the world's population account for a mere 5 percent
of the world income, while the richest 20 percent of the population garner
75 percent of the world income.4 Poverty is especially acute in Muslim
societies, where hundreds of millions of people, in even the most
economically and politically advanced Muslim countries, live well below
the poverty line.' The Islamic faith strongly encourages regular charity to
those in financial need,6 but charity alone will not be enough to foster a
sustainable solution to the broad poverty levels amongst its followers-
charity is a stopgap, integral in maintaining life at its most basic point, but
insufficient as an answer to needs beyond the basic. To impact the
individuals living in poverty in the long-term, they need to be made into a
productive, economically included population that can be self-sustaining.
Fortunately, and perhaps fortuitously, the principles underlying such an
approach have long-standing support in the Islamic faith. Take, for
example, the following famous hadith:
University of Texas at Austin, B.A. 2008; University of Connecticut School of Law, Juris
Doctor Candidate 2012. I would like to express my profound gratitude to Professor Umar Moghul for
his invaluable guidance and encouragement in this and several related endeavors. I am also extremely
grateful to my fellow members of the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal for their outstanding
contributions to this article.
' Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats, GLOBALISSUES.ORG,
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats (last updated Sept. 20, 2010) [hereinafter
GLOBALISSUES.ORG].
21id.
See MUHAMMAD YuNus, BANKER TO THE POOR 52-54 (1999).
Shah, supra note 1.
5Radhika Madana Mohan, Microfinance: Is There a Place for It in Islamic Finance, ISLAMIC FIN.
ASIA (Sept. 2010), http://www.islamicfinanceasia.com/article.asp?nm-id=18675.
6 See generally MOHAMMED OBAIDULLAH, INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC MICROFINANCE 25-40
(2008), available at ribh.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/islamic-microfinance-m-obaidullah.pdf](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/cpilj11&div=15&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Islamic Microfinance: Sustainable Poverty Alleviation for the Muslim Poor
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