Before We Map New Provinces: Replacing Colonial Bu…

The first part of this series argued that Pakistan’s recurring fiscal crises cannot be understood through conventional economic analysis alone. The distinction between public finance and Constitutional Political Economy (CPE) must now be explained. Both examine the role of the state in economic life, but they begin from different assumptions and ask fundamentally different questions. Traditional public finance is primarily concerned with what governments ought to do. In the classical framework associated with Richard Musgrave, fiscal policy performs three principal functions: allocation of resources, redistribution of income and macroeconomic stabilisation. Governments provide public goods, correct market failures, reduce unacceptable inequalities and use taxation and expenditure to promote stability and growth. This framework remains indispensable for analysing budgets, taxes and public expenditure. The International Monetary Fund’s discussion of Musgrave’s framework confirms its enduring influence on fiscal analysis. The difficulty arises when the state is treated as a single, impartial institution pursuing social welfare. In the real world, governments consist of politicians, bureaucrats, legislators, judges, regulators and numerous organised interests. Each operates under incentives and constraints. Political actors do not cease to pursue power, institutional advantage or personal interest merely because they enter public office. A tax system may therefore be inefficient not because its designers misunderstood economic theory, but because inefficiency benefits influential constituencies. An exemption may survive not because it promotes investment, but because its beneficiaries possess political power. Public expenditure may be allocated not according to social need, but according to the ability of institutions and groups to influence the budgetary process. Public finance generally asks: what tax would be efficient, equitable and productive? CPE asks a prior question: what political and constitutional arrangements will cause those in authority to adopt and administer such a tax fairly? This difference emerged most clearly in the work of James M. Buchanan, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for developing the contractual and constitutional foundations of economic and political decision-making. Buchanan argued that economists must specify their model of politics before recommending policies. They should examine the “constitution of economic polity”—the rules and constraints within which political actors make decisions—rather than assuming that government automatically acts as a benevolent guardian of collective welfare. In The Calculus of Consent, Buchanan and Gordon Tullock applied economic reasoning to collective decision-making. They distinguished between choices made within existing rules and choices concerning the rules themselves. Ordinary politics concerns decisions taken under established constitutional arrangements. Constitutional political economy examines how those arrangements should be designed, whose consent they require and what incentives they create. The distinction may be understood through the analogy of a game. Public finance often studies the moves made by players: whether a tax rate should be increased, expenditure reduced, subsidies withdrawn or borrowing limited. CPE examines the rules of the game: who may impose a tax, who may approve expenditure, how revenues are distributed, what majorities are required, which institutions are accountable and what remedies exist when power is abused. The rules determine the range of possible outcomes. Replacing one finance minister, tax administrator or economic adviser cannot fundamentally alter results if the institutional incentives remain unchanged. Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennan developed this insight further in The Reason of Rules. Their focus was not merely upon particular policy choices but upon the rules governing political and market interaction. CPE therefore does not ask only whether a government policy appears desirable. It asks whether the institutional process through which it is adopted protects citizens against arbitrary, discriminatory or predatory use of power. This approach does not imply hostility towards the state. A capable state is essential for education, healthcare, infrastructure, environmental protection, social security and economic development. CPE merely refuses to assume that state power will automatically be exercised for these purposes. A strong state without constitutional restraints may become strong against ordinary citizens while remaining weak before powerful interests. These insights are neither exclusively modern nor exclusively Western. Centuries before the emergence of public choice theory, Ibn Khaldun analysed taxation as part of the broader rise and decline of states. He observed that governments in their earlier stages could obtain substantial revenues from relatively moderate assessments, whereas later rulers frequently imposed heavier burdens but collected less as incentives weakened, production contracted and coercive expenditure expanded. Arthur B. Laffer subsequently acknowledged that the proposition associated with the Laffer Curve was not his invention and specifically identified Ibn Khaldun as an important precursor. Ibn Khaldun’s contribution, however, went far beyond a relationship between tax rates and revenue: he connected fiscal policy with political legitimacy, administrative expansion, elite consumption and institutional decline. The Constitution of Pakistan itself demonstrates that taxation is not merely an economic instrument. Article 77 provides that no federal tax may be levied except by or under the authority of an Act of Parliament. The provision embodies the constitutional principle that taxation requires lawful legislative authority; it is not simply an administrative technique for raising revenue. Article 160 creates the National Finance Commission and provides the framework for distributing specified revenues between the Federation and the provinces. Article 160(3A) further protects the provincial share by declaring that it cannot be lower than that provided under the preceding Award. These provisions represent a constitutional bargain concerning political authority, federalism and access to public resources. Revenue distribution is consequently not just an accounting exercise. It forms part of the structure of the federation itself. Article 140A requires the provinces to establish elected local governments and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility to them. Fiscal policy cannot produce accountable public services when decision-making remains remote from citizens and constitutionally required devolution is treated as optional. Articles 37 and 38 contain important commitments regarding social justice, education, economic well-being, reduction of inequality and provision of basic necessities. They are Principles of Policy rather than directly enforceable Fundamental Rights, and Article 30 limits their judicial enforceability. Their inclusion nevertheless demonstrates that the constitutional purposes of revenue collection extend beyond achievement of numerical tax targets. The state collects resources to fulfil social and economic obligations, not

The preceding parts of this series began with a simple question: why do technically sound economic and tax reforms repeatedly fail in Pakistan? The answer cannot be found in tax rates, revenue targets or administrative capacity alone. Pakistan’s fiscal failures arise from the constitutional and political order within which taxation, expenditure, borrowing and distribution take place.  The country does not merely have an inefficient tax system. It has a fiscal state whose incentives favour immediate extraction, selective enforcement, negotiated privilege and recurring external dependence. The previous part IX applied this framework to contemporary proposals for closing Pakistan’s tax gap. Empirical estimates of untaxed capacity, sectoral inequality and revenue potential are valuable.  Data tell us where disparities exist and what additional resources might theoretically be mobilised. However, data do not explain why those disparities have survived repeated reform efforts, nor why the same burdens continue to fall upon documented businesses, salaried persons and ordinary consumers. That explanation lies beyond public finance. Constitutional Political Economy (CPE) begins from the recognition that the state is not an abstract guardian automatically pursuing collective welfare. It consists of institutions and individuals responding to incentives, protecting authority, bargaining over resources and operating within formal and informal rules.  Fiscal outcomes reflect the distribution of political power as much as principles of efficiency or equity. Pakistan’s tax crisis is the fiscal expression of that political order. Revenue without a fiscal compact A sustainable tax system rests upon a fiscal compact between citizen and state. Citizens contribute according to lawful and reasonably distributed burdens. The state, in return, provides security, justice, education, healthcare, infrastructure, economic opportunity and protection against vulnerability.  Pakistan has progressively weakened both sides of that compact. The state demands more from those already visible while tolerating privileges for those capable of political resistance.  Citizens encounter taxes in electricity bills, fuel prices, banking transactions, telecommunications, imports, contracts and ordinary consumption. Much of this extraction occurs without determining their actual income or ability to pay. Public services remain inadequate and uneven. Taxpayers are then told that services cannot improve because revenue is insufficient. The state responds to the resulting mistrust with more withholding, surveillance and coercion.  This creates a destructive cycle: weak services reduce consent; declining consent increases reliance on coercive collection; coercion deepens mistrust; mistrust encourages informality; and informality becomes the justification for still more transaction-based taxation. A fiscal compact cannot be created through fear. Restoring income taxation The first requirement is to restore the meaning of income tax. Income taxation should ordinarily measure net income after legitimate costs and losses and impose liability according to capacity to pay. Pakistan has instead constructed a vast structure of advance, minimum, final, presumptive and withholding taxes imposed upon transactions, turnover and gross receipts. This structure is administratively convenient. It allows the state to collect through banks, employers, utilities, import authorities and private businesses without developing the institutional capacity to determine real income. Its convenience is precisely the problem. Withholding should remain where deduction at source is logically connected with the recipient’s income and operates as an adjustable advance—principally salaries, dividends and profit on debt. It should not function as a substitute for return-based taxation, proper assessment and intelligent audit. Turnover cannot permanently replace income. A business earning a narrow margin cannot justly be taxed in the same manner as one earning extraordinary profits merely because both record similar receipts. Minimum and presumptive regimes penalise investment, distort business structures and convert losses into taxable events. The objective should not be abolition of withholding overnight. It should be a legislated transition towards a system in which withholding becomes limited, adjustable and subordinate to final determination of income. A genuine value added tax The second requirement is restoration of sales tax as a genuine value added tax. Pakistan has retained the vocabulary of VAT while repeatedly breaking its chain through exemptions, special schedules, blocked credits, fixed regimes, multiple rates and arbitrary restrictions. The result is cascading, litigation, refund accumulation and a bias against documented production. A genuine VAT should apply through a broad and coherent base, a substantially lower standard rate and unrestricted adjustment of legitimate input tax.  Exemptions should be confined to carefully identified necessities and public-interest activities. Refunds should be treated as taxpayers’ money, not as an unofficial source of financing for the state. The constitutional division between sales tax on goods and services need not condemn businesses to fragmented administration. Harmonised definitions, a common return, integrated registration, shared information and an agreed clearing mechanism can preserve provincial taxing authority while reducing compliance costs. Coordination is essential. Re-centralisation is not. Pakistan’s federation was not designed solely for administrative convenience. Article 160 of the Constitution protects the distribution of specified revenues between the Federation and provinces, while Article 140A requires devolution of political, administrative and financial responsibility to elected local governments.  Fiscal reform must strengthen all three levels of constitutional government rather than treating provinces and local bodies as spending agencies dependent upon federal discretion.  Ending taxation through labels A constitutional fiscal order must also respect the actual nature of each levy. Parliament cannot convert a provincial tax into a federal tax merely by attaching a different label. Nor can the executive create a new taxable event through rules, notifications or administrative directions where the legislature has not imposed one. Article 77 requires federal taxation to rest upon parliamentary authority. Articles 4, 24 and 25 bring legality, protection against arbitrary deprivation and equality into the same constitutional inquiry. Legislative enactment is indispensable, but enactment alone does not validate a levy that exceeds legislative competence, discriminates irrationally or denies due process.  The annual Finance Act should not be used as a container for major structural changes receiving limited parliamentary examination. Essential elements of a tax—the subject, person liable, measure, rate and taxable event—must be stated clearly in primary legislation. Delegated legislation may implement the law. It cannot become an alternative legislature. Expenditure is the other side of taxation The debate over Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio often proceeds as though every additional rupee

For three decades, the prevailing narrative of the global economy was one of seamless integration. From the design studios of California to the high-tech assembly lines of Shenzhen, the world operated on the assumption that technology was a bridge, not a barrier. However, that era of “borderless innovation” is rapidly giving way to a more fragmented reality. As the United States and China engage in an intensifying rivalry over the foundational technologies of the 21st century artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, and 5G a “Silicon Curtain” is descending, reshaping global supply chains and forcing a difficult reckoning for developing nations. The shift marks a transition from a world defined by economic efficiency to one governed by national security. In Washington, the consensus has hardened around the idea that “de-risking” from China is essential to protect intellectual property and maintain a military edge. In Beijing, the drive for “technological self-reliance” has become a central pillar of national survival. What began as a series of trade disputes in 2018 has evolved into a comprehensive decoupling that threatens to bifurcate the global digital ecosystem. The Semiconductor Siege and the AI Arms Race At the heart of this decoupling is the semiconductor the “oil” of the digital age. Advanced microchips are the brains behind everything from smartphones to hypersonic missiles. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce introduced sweeping export controls designed to prevent China from acquiring the high end chips necessary for training generative AI models. The “CHIPS and Science Act” further signaled Washington’s intent to reshore manufacturing, offering billions in subsidies to bring fabrication back to American soil. China has responded with its own set of defensive and offensive measures. Beijing has invested hundreds of billions of dollars into its domestic chip industry via the “Big Fund” and has imposed export restrictions on critical minerals like gallium and germanium materials essential for high-tech manufacturing. This tit-for-tat dynamic has profound implications for AI development. While the U.S. currently leads in algorithmic innovation and hardware design, China possesses a vast reservoir of data and a highly integrated industrial base. As the two powers diverge, the world faces the prospect of two distinct AI “stacks” each with its own standards, ethical frameworks, and hardware requirements. For global corporations, the cost of maintaining two separate supply chains is staggering, with some estimates suggesting a permanent 1 to 5 percent drag on global GDP. The 5G Dilemma: Infrastructure as an Ideology The rivalry is equally visible in the rollout of 5G telecommunications. As the backbone of the “Internet of Things,” 5G infrastructure is more than just a faster cellular network; it is the nervous system of modern cities. The U.S. campaign to exclude Chinese providers like Huawei and ZTE from Western networks, citing security vulnerabilities, has effectively split the world into two camps. Many European and “Five Eyes” nations have aligned with Washington, citing the risks of state-sponsored espionage. Conversely, many nations across Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East have continued to embrace Chinese infrastructure, which is often more affordable and comes with flexible financing. This infrastructure divide creates a “path dependency”: once a country adopts a specific 5G standard, the subsequent software, security protocols, and hardware upgrades are likely to follow the same technical lineage. The “Digital Non-Aligned Movement” Perhaps the most complex fallout of this decoupling is felt in the Global South. Developing nations, many of which are in the midst of their own digital transformations, now find themselves in an uncomfortable position. They are being pressured to choose between the two technological poles, a choice that carries significant economic and diplomatic risks. For a developing economy in Africa or Latin America, U.S. technology offers high security and integration with Western financial markets. However, Chinese technology often provides a lower barrier to entry and a focus on state-led development goals. The danger, according to many economists, is that this “tech-polarization” will lead to a lack of interoperability. If a startup in Nairobi develops an app on a Chinese cloud platform, will it function seamlessly for a user in a market dominated by American standards? Furthermore, the “friend-shoring” of supply chains where production is moved to politically allied nations is creating new winners and losers. Countries like Vietnam, India, and Mexico have seen an influx of investment as manufacturers seek to diversify away from China. However, other developing nations that lack the infrastructure or political alignment to join these new “trusted” supply chains risk being further marginalized. A World of Redundancy and Risk Critics of decoupling argue that the process is not only expensive but potentially futile. The global tech industry is so deeply intertwined that total separation may be impossible without catastrophic economic damage. Apple, for instance, still relies heavily on Chinese assembly, while Chinese tech firms still utilize American software architectures. Moreover, the environmental cost of decoupling is often overlooked. As both superpowers race to build redundant factories and secure mineral supplies, the efficiency gains of globalized production are lost, leading to increased carbon footprints and resource competition. The “Green Transition” itself is at risk, as solar panels and electric vehicle batteries are caught in the crosshairs of trade restrictions. The US-China tech rivalry is no longer a peripheral trade dispute; it is the defining feature of modern geopolitics. The shift from a globalized market to a fractured one represents a fundamental change in how the world innovates and communicates. While “strategic autonomy” may offer a sense of security for the superpowers, it introduces a new layer of volatility for the rest of the world. As we move forward, the challenge for the international community will be to establish a “digital floor” a set of minimum standards and protocols that allow the world to remain connected even as political systems diverge. Without such a framework, the “Fractured Circuit” may not only slow the pace of global innovation but also deepen the divide between the connected and the disconnected, leaving the most vulnerable nations to navigate a world of incompatible systems and dwindling choices.

Pakistan has a peculiar relationship with workplace merit. We talk about it constantly. Government departments are criticised for delaying promotions. Corporations are questioned over favouritism. Universities are urged to reward academic performance. Employers are told to retain talent. Media organisations routinely expose nepotism, extensions, political appointments and institutional injustice. But there is a question that is rarely asked: Do the organisations making these arguments follow the same standards inside their own walls? The question is particularly relevant to Pakistan’s media industry. Newspapers and television channels have considerable influence over how society understands fairness at work. They report on workers denied promotions, bureaucrats given extensions, senior officials superseded and institutions accused of favouritism. But journalism cannot demand accountability from everyone else while exempting itself from scrutiny. That is where the conversation around employee retention, promotions and extensions becomes uncomfortable. The Extension That Blocks an Entire Career Ladder In any hierarchical organisation, one senior position can determine the careers of dozens of people below it. When a person occupying a senior position retires, the organisation has several choices. It can promote someone from within. It can recruit externally. It can restructure the position. Or, where there is a genuine institutional requirement, it can retain the individual for a defined period. The problem begins when an exception becomes a culture. A six-month extension becomes another year. A temporary arrangement becomes a permanent arrangement. A retired employee is brought back. Another extension follows. Meanwhile, people below continue waiting. For them, the issue is not merely that someone has been allowed to continue working. It is that their own careers may have been placed on hold to accommodate someone else’s continued career. That distinction is often ignored in Pakistan. Even Dawn Has Written About This Problem Dawn itself has been among the publications highlighting the damage caused by prolonged temporary arrangements. In a May 2026 editorial titled “Ad hoc culture,” Dawn criticised the practice of keeping people in higher positions through prolonged temporary arrangements, noting that such practices can leave employees without formal promotion, financial benefits or recognition of seniority. It specifically highlighted the frustration of employees whose seniority is bypassed. That position is difficult to disagree with. In fact, it is precisely the position that responsible journalism should take. But it also raises a more uncomfortable question: What happens when the same principles are applied to the media organisations themselves? The Dawn Question Dawn has long presented itself as an institution committed to professional journalism, institutional accountability and workers’ rights. Its pages have repeatedly carried arguments in favour of merit-based promotions and against prolonged ad-hoc arrangements. A January 2026 Dawn editorial page contribution on academic promotions, for example, argued that delayed promotions erode meritocracy, demotivate employees and can drive talented professionals towards private institutions or overseas opportunities. In another recent editorial, Dawn argued that prolonged temporary arrangements can stagnate careers and deprive employees of financial progression and recognition. These are sound principles. But principles become meaningful only when they are applied consistently. And this is where, based on my own knowledge of the organisation, an uncomfortable contradiction deserves examination. Dawn’s senior management structure has itself seen prolonged extensions, while retired managers have, according to my knowledge, been brought back into employment in Lahore and elsewhere. That raises a straightforward question: If retaining retired or extended senior personnel is justified by institutional necessity, why should the same practice be criticised when governments or other organisations do it? And if prolonged extensions are capable of blocking the careers of younger employees in government departments, why would the principle suddenly cease to apply inside a media organisation? This is not an argument against experience. Nor is it an argument that every retired employee should automatically be removed. Experience has value. Institutional memory has value. A highly experienced editor or manager can be extremely difficult to replace. But institutional value cannot become a permanent justification for blocking succession. Fifteen Years Is a Long Time in Any Profession The question becomes even more significant when a senior position remains occupied for an exceptionally long period. From my own knowledge of Dawn, its editor has remained in the position for nearly 15 years through extensions. Again, the question is not whether an individual is competent. The question is whether an institution that advocates professional advancement should also have a mechanism for developing and promoting the next generation of leadership. Fifteen years is enough time for an entire generation of journalists to enter an organisation, build careers, become senior reporters, become editors and eventually expect to take on greater responsibility. If the top positions remain occupied indefinitely, where does that generation go? There is a very real distinction between retaining talent and preventing succession. A healthy institution must know the difference. The Supreme Court Has Now Entered This Conversation This is no longer merely an HR theory. Pakistan’s Supreme Court has recently addressed the issue in remarkably strong terms. In January 2026, the court ruled that government departments could not use administrative inefficiency and procedural delays as an excuse for denying employees timely consideration for promotion. It held that promotion is connected to merit, performance and operational requirements, and said employees should not suffer because a department failed to convene promotion committees or relied excessively on acting arrangements. Four months later, in May 2026, the Supreme Court went further. It held that prolonged ad-hoc, look-after, current-charge, acting-charge and additional-charge arrangements can amount to exploitation. The case involved a Pakistan Railways employee who had performed duties of a higher post for nearly eight years before receiving regular promotion. The court’s reasoning is important because it moves the debate beyond bureaucratic procedure. It is about human beings and their careers. A person who spends years doing higher-level work without receiving corresponding recognition, seniority or financial benefits is not merely dealing with an administrative inconvenience. Their career is being affected. What Happens to the Person Waiting Below? This is the part of the Pakistani workplace debate we often ignore. We discuss the person

Pakistan has debated the elimination of riba—a Quranic term subjected to judicial interpretation and theological discourse but still lacking a precise statutory definition—for decades. Judicial decisions have been delivered, commissions constituted, reports prepared, appeals filed and withdrawn, deadlines announced and Islamic banking expanded. The central intellectual and legislative task, however, remains incomplete. We have not developed a precise, comprehensive and operational definition of the economic practices that must be prohibited. This omission is not merely academic. No financial system can be reconstructed around a prohibition that is expressed only as a moral declaration. A law [Who will draft Riba Prohibition Law? Minute Mirror, April 7, 2026] must identify the transaction, the prohibited increment, the parties affected, the substance to be examined and the consequences of violation. It must also distinguish an unlawful return on money from lawful earnings arising from trade, labour, services, ownership and commercial risk. The first requirement of a serious programme for the elimination of riba is clarity. Riba is commonly translated as interest/usury. This translation is useful but incomplete. Modern interest is one of its most important manifestations, particularly where a lender advances money and contractually claims an additional amount merely because the borrower is allowed time to repay. The prohibition, however, cannot be confined to instruments carrying the label “interest”. Nor can every commercial gain, deferred price or fixed payment be declared riba. The distinction lies in the legal and economic substance of the transaction. Where money is advanced as a loan and the lender is guaranteed an increase over the principal, the return does not arise from ownership of a productive asset, provision of a service, participation in business or exposure to commercial loss. It arises from the loan itself and the passage of time. The borrower must pay the increase whether the borrowed funds generate profit, produce loss, meet a medical emergency or finance bare survival. This asymmetry lies at the heart of the problem. Capital is protected; return is predetermined; risk is shifted to the borrower. Trade operates differently. A trader purchases or produces an asset, assumes the risks of ownership, incurs costs, faces the possibility of loss and sells the asset at a profit. The profit is not earned merely because money has been unavailable to another person for a period. It is connected with property, exchange, enterprise and market risk. Lease income also rests upon a different foundation. An owner permits another person to use an asset while retaining the liabilities associated with ownership. Rent represents consideration for the use of the asset. The arrangement becomes questionable when the supposed owner bears no meaningful ownership risk and the entire structure is merely a cash loan disguised through documents. Partnership profit has another character. Partners combine capital, work, expertise or enterprise. Profit is divided according to an agreed formula permitted by the applicable juristic principles, while financial loss follows the capital placed at risk. A partner cannot lawfully guarantee himself a fixed return upon capital and compel the other partner to bear every commercial loss. These distinctions are recognised, with variations, across the major Muslim schools. They differ on matters such as the permissible relationship between capital contribution and profit-sharing ratios, conditions attached to contracts, possession, agency and the allocation of particular risks. They do not treat every profit as riba. Nor do they permit a partner to convert genuine risk participation into a guaranteed return on money. A modern Prohibition of Riba law must preserve these distinctions. The difficulty is that contemporary finance has developed techniques through which a loan can be divided into several formally separate contracts. An institution may purchase an asset for a few moments, sell it to the customer at a marked-up price, obtain comprehensive security, transfer every economic risk to the customer and calculate its return by reference to the prevailing interest rate. The transaction may satisfy documentary requirements while reproducing the economic substance of conventional lending. The institution receives a predetermined return; the customer bears the commercial risk; and the institution’s temporary ownership exists mainly to legitimise the financing charge. This does not mean that murabaha, ijarah or diminishing musharakah are inherently invalid. Each can serve a legitimate commercial purpose. Murabaha can facilitate an actual purchase where the financier genuinely acquires and assumes responsibility for the asset before selling it. Ijarah can finance the use of an asset where the lessor retains real ownership obligations. Diminishing musharakah can support home ownership where the parties genuinely share ownership and the customer gradually acquires the financier’s units. The problem arises when these contracts are treated as legal devices for guaranteeing the same return that would have been received under an interest-bearing loan. A workable definition must therefore contain both a formal and a substantive test. The formal test will examine the legal category of the contract. The substantive test will determine whether the financier has provided an asset, service or productive participation and whether it has assumed a genuine risk corresponding to its return. This test should not be misunderstood as hostility towards fixed prices. A lawful sale price may be fixed. Rent may be determined in advance. A service fee may be agreed. The existence of a fixed amount does not by itself establish riba. The decisive question is what the payment represents. A fee charged for maintaining an account, transferring funds, valuing property, arranging documentation or providing an identifiable professional service may be legitimate. A “service fee” calculated as a percentage of a loan, increasing with time and unrelated to the actual cost or nature of the service may be interest under another name. The same care is required in relation to delayed payment. A seller, who supplies goods on deferred payment, may charge a price higher than the immediate cash price, provided one price is finally agreed when the contract is concluded. Once the debt has been created, however, an additional amount cannot ordinarily be imposed merely because the debtor requires more time. This is where many modern systems institutionalise exploitation. A

For the Muslim world, and increasingly for Europe, recent developments have become both a matter of interest and concern. Reports indicate that around 60,000 young people from the Muslim-majority country of Morocco entered Spain. Those who have seen the videos circulating on social media can appreciate the scale of the event. Large groups of young people can be seen running toward the border, storming barriers, arriving in overcrowded boats, climbing over high fences, and breaking through metal barricades in an effort to reach Spanish territory. According to reports, these migrants entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa. Their objective was neither invasion nor occupation but rather the pursuit of a better future and improved employment opportunities. Poverty and unemployment in their home country have driven them to seek a new life in Europe. Thousands crossed the sea and border fences together, hoping that their sheer numbers would overwhelm security forces and make it impossible to stop them. Reports also suggest that Spain’s border security had temporary weaknesses at the time. In addition, Spanish courts had recently issued relatively lenient rulings regarding migrants, including granting legal status to nearly 500,000 people who had previously entered the country illegally. The U.S. State Department criticized Spain over what it viewed as policies that encouraged illegal migration. Although Spanish border security forces made considerable efforts to stop the influx, media reports stated that approximately 57 people lost their lives during the crossings. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made an emergency visit to Ceuta to oversee the government’s response. Authorities reportedly succeeded in returning about 37,000 of the 60,000 migrants to Morocco, but locating and dealing with the remaining 23,000 became a significant issue, raising concerns across Europe. France, Italy, Germany, and other European countries urged Spain to strengthen its border controls. The United States also reacted strongly, drawing comparisons with its own migration challenges at the Mexican border. President Donald Trump cited the incident as proof that constructing a border wall had been the right decision, arguing that without it the United States might have faced a similar situation. Europe’s concern is understandable because of the European Union’s system of open internal borders. Once migrants enter one EU country, they may be able to move onward to others with relatively few obstacles. Spain has long been regarded as one of Europe’s more immigration-friendly countries. I once asked a diplomat friend which European country was the easiest for obtaining a visa, and without hesitation he replied, “Spain.” Morocco is a friendly Muslim nation led by King Mohammed VI, who is widely respected and holds considerable influence. It also has an elected government headed by Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch. This raises an important question: why have Muslim countries not become prosperous and developed enough to attract people from non-Muslim nations rather than losing their own citizens? The same question applies to Pakistan. Our country was created after immense sacrifices, with the vision of establishing a model Islamic state. Millions were displaced and countless lives were lost during Partition in 1947. At that time, Muslims migrated to Pakistan with great enthusiasm and hope. Today, however, many Pakistanis display the same determination to leave the country and settle in Europe. In pursuing this dream, many become victims of human traffickers, while others lose their lives attempting dangerous sea crossings. When the bodies of these young people are returned to their families, it causes unimaginable grief, yet the desire to seek a better future abroad remains as strong as ever. This leads to another important question: why have we failed to make our own countries places of prosperity, freedom, human dignity, and compassion—qualities that many people associate with Western societies today? Why are we unable to provide our citizens with the same respect for human rights and personal freedoms? Religious leaders often criticize the West, condemning its culture and values. They describe Western civilization as morally corrupt and frequently quote verses predicting its eventual decline: “Your civilization will destroy itself with its own dagger.” “A nest built upon a fragile branch cannot endure.” Ironically, many Western societies today fear what they describe as an “Islamic influx.” They argue that some migrants misuse religious freedom, demand the implementation of Islamic law, campaign over issues such as the hijab, and challenge local cultural norms. Some also claim that immigration has contributed to increases in crimes such as child abuse and other offenses. Whether these concerns are justified or exaggerated remains a matter of public debate, but it is undeniable that immigration has become a politically sensitive issue across Europe. Public pressure is mounting on European governments to tighten immigration policies. Western intellectuals also pose a difficult question: if Muslims believe they possess the final divine revelation, a complete way of life, and a preserved holy scripture, why have they not transformed their own societies into places where their young people would choose to remain instead of risking everything to migrate to Europe? Traditional Islamic teachings have long distinguished between the Dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam or peace) and lands outside Islamic rule, historically described in classical jurisprudence by terms such as Dar al-Harb (the abode of war). Classical legal literature contains extensive discussions on these concepts and, in certain historical contexts, encouraged Muslims to migrate to Muslim lands whenever possible. Yet many young Muslims today seem unfamiliar with these classical debates, and many contemporary religious scholars appear reluctant to discuss them in detail, perhaps because the realities of the modern world differ significantly from the historical circumstances in which those rulings were developed.