Justice Begins with the Well-being of Judges

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that sets in when a war refuses to end on schedule. Five months into the conflict between the United States and Iran, we are living through it. Ceasefires are announced and collapse within weeks. Strikes are billed as decisive and are followed, days later, by more strikes. Each side insists the other will soon come to its senses, and each side is wrong. What we are watching is not a war moving toward resolution. It is a war that has become self-sustaining, and the longer it runs, the more countries get pulled into its logic whether they wanted a role in it or not. Saudi Arabia is the clearest example. For nearly four years, Riyadh had quietly extracted itself from the Yemen war, treating the 2022 ceasefire with the Houthis as one of the few unambiguous foreign policy wins of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s tenure. That restraint is now gone. When the Houthis resumed missile fire at Israel in solidarity with Tehran, and then began striking Saudi oil infrastructure directly, Riyadh had no real choice but to respond. It bombed Hodeidah. The Houthis retaliated against Aramco facilities in Yanbu and Jizan. A conflict Saudi Arabia spent years trying to bury is now, again, live on its border, not because Riyadh chose it but because a war between Washington and Tehran left no room for neutrality. This is the pattern worth naming plainly: nobody in this conflict is fighting the war they intended to fight. Washington launched its campaign framed around Iran’s nuclear program, wagering that decisive strikes would force capitulation or collapse. Instead it has strikes running past the two-week mark with no clear terminus, American service members killed in Jordan and Iraq, and a president publicly conceding that the exit could be “diplomatic or military” — which is another way of saying nobody currently knows how this ends. Iran, for its part, has responded to devastating strikes on its cities not with capitulation but with exactly the kind of asymmetric, proxy-driven defiance its doctrine was built for, activating fronts in Iraq, the Gulf, and now Yemen that cost it little and cost everyone else a great deal. The Strait of Hormuz tells the same story in economic terms. Daily vessel traffic through one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints has fallen to a small fraction of its prewar level. That is not an abstraction. It shows up in tanker insurance premiums in Piraeus and London, in fuel costs in Mumbai and Rotterdam, in the balance sheets of countries that have precisely nothing to do with this fight. War aims that once seemed narrowly bilateral — Washington versus Tehran, over centrifuges and missile stockpiles — have metastasized into a tax on global trade that nobody voted for and nobody can opt out of. It is tempting, watching this unfold, to look for a single culprit. Commentators sympathetic to Washington will point to Iran’s decades of proxy warfare, its nuclear ambiguity, its crackdown on its own protesters, and argue the current campaign is simply overdue accountability. Commentators sympathetic to Tehran will point to a US-Israeli strike that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and ask what state, faced with the assassination of its head of state, would not treat that as an act of war demanding a response. Both arguments contain real grievances. Neither survives contact with what has actually happened since: a conflict that both sides insist is about narrow, defensible aims but that neither side has been able to keep narrow. Wars rarely stay the size their architects intend. What should worry observers most is not any single strike or retaliation but the absence of an exit ramp anyone believes in. Ceasefires here have not functioned as steps toward peace; they have functioned as pauses for rearmament, evidenced by how quickly each one has collapsed back into nightly bombing. That is the signature of a conflict without a theory of victory — one where both governments can inflict real pain on the other indefinitely, but where neither can convert that pain into a settlement it can sell to its own public. In that kind of war, the fighting does not stop because someone wins. It stops, if it stops, because the costs finally exceed what either government’s domestic politics can absorb — and on the evidence of the past five months, that threshold keeps receding rather than approaching. Saudi Arabia’s reluctant return to the Yemen battlefield should be read as an early warning rather than a footnote. It shows how a conflict that both Washington and Tehran describe as fundamentally about themselves keeps finding new participants who never agreed to join. If this war continues on its current trajectory, the question worth asking is not which superpower prevails, but how many other countries, currencies, and shipping lanes get quietly conscripted before it does.

The signing of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye on August 7 has opened a new and potentially consequential chapter in the security architecture of Asia and the Gulf. The agreement states that an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against all three, while envisaging deeper military coordination, joint exercises, intelligence cooperation and collaboration in areas including drones, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence and defence production. Türkiye has also indicated that the framework could eventually be expanded to other countries. What makes the development particularly significant is not simply the agreement itself, but the reaction from Washington. President Donald Trump has welcomed the pact as a “big, bold, important first step” towards regional countries being able to defend themselves more meaningfully. His words raise a larger strategic question, is the United States beginning to transfer a greater share of the burden of confronting Iran to regional powers, particularly the Gulf and Asian countries? Or making this region as its main combatant force against Iran? And what are the possible next steps? The answer is more complicated than a simple American withdrawal. Washington is unlikely to abandon the Middle East, its military assets, intelligence networks, diplomatic influence or relationships with Gulf states. What appears to be changing is the distribution of responsibility. The Trump administration’s broader philosophy of burden-sharing suggests that countries possessing substantial financial, military and strategic resources should assume greater responsibility for their own security rather than expecting Washington to carry the entire cost. In that sense, America may not be handing over the war against Iran, but it may be regionalising the consequences of that war. The distinction is crucial. A regionalised conflict can become much more dangerous because the number of actors involved increases. At the same time, regional ownership of security could eventually create a framework in which regional states themselves negotiate a new balance rather than remaining permanently dependent on an external power. The Pakistan-Saudi relationship provides the foundation for this transformation. The two countries signed their Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement in September 2025, committing themselves to collective security. The new Mecca agreement effectively brings Türkiye into a much broader strategic framework. Each country brings a different strategic asset. Saudi Arabia possesses enormous financial resources, energy influence and geographical importance. Türkiye brings one of the region’s most capable conventional militaries, a rapidly developing indigenous defence industry, drone technology and NATO experience. Pakistan brings a large and experienced military establishment and, uniquely among Muslim-majority states, a nuclear deterrent. The combination therefore has significance beyond its three signatories. It links the Gulf, South Asia and the eastern Mediterranean in a single security conversation. For Saudi Arabia, the agreement represents strategic insurance. Riyadh has increasingly understood that sophisticated American weapons alone cannot eliminate vulnerabilities created by missiles, drones, cyberwarfare and attacks on energy infrastructure. Diversifying its security relationships allows Saudi Arabia to maintain its partnership with Washington while simultaneously developing alternative sources of military capability. For Türkiye, the pact fits into Ankara’s long-standing ambition to exercise greater strategic autonomy. Türkiye remains a NATO member, but it has increasingly demonstrated that it does not want its foreign policy to be dictated by any single great power. A defence relationship stretching from Türkiye through Saudi Arabia to Pakistan expands Ankara’s influence across two strategically vital regions. For Pakistan, however, the equation is much more delicate. Pakistan has the opportunity to emerge as an important security bridge between South Asia and the Gulf, but it also has a geographical reality that cannot be ignored, it shares a border with Iran. Islamabad cannot afford to treat Tehran simply as an enemy without exposing itself to enormous security, economic and diplomatic risks. Pakistan therefore faces the most difficult balancing act of the three. Its relationship with Saudi Arabia is strategically important. Its relationship with Türkiye is deepening. Its partnership with China remains fundamental. Its relationship with the United States is economically and strategically significant. Yet Iran is its immediate western neighbour, with which it shares a long border and important diplomatic and economic interests. This makes Pakistan potentially more valuable as a mediator than as a frontline combatant. If Islamabad can defend Saudi Arabia while simultaneously maintaining communication with Tehran, it could acquire an extraordinary diplomatic role. Pakistan could become one of the few countries capable of speaking to the Gulf, Iran, Türkiye, China and Washington at the same time. That possibility is already visible in Pakistan’s efforts to maintain diplomatic engagement with Iran while navigating its defence commitments to Saudi Arabia. The Iranian response will be critical. Although the three countries have described the agreement as defensive rather than an alliance directed against a particular state, Tehran will inevitably examine its military implications. A coordinated Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani security structure potentially means improved intelligence, air defence, military exercises, drone capabilities and defence-industrial cooperation around Iran’s strategic neighbourhood. But this could produce two very different outcomes. The first is escalation. Iran could interpret the emerging architecture as an attempt to encircle it and respond by strengthening its missile forces, regional partnerships and asymmetric capabilities. The Gulf could then become increasingly militarised, with every defensive measure interpreted by the other side as preparation for aggression. The second possibility is deterrence leading eventually to diplomacy. If Iran concludes that it cannot achieve regional dominance through military pressure, while Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states conclude that permanent dependence on American protection is neither sufficient nor sustainable, both sides may eventually have an incentive to negotiate a regional security arrangement. That would be the more constructive outcome. The danger, however, is that the emerging alliance could be interpreted through a sectarian lens. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan are all Sunni-majority states, while Iran is the region’s principal Shia power. If the new security architecture becomes identified as a Sunni military bloc confronting Shia Iran, it could revive precisely the sectarian competition that has destabilised the Middle East for decades. Pakistan should be particularly careful

(When the water rises, who shows up and who is left waiting?) ‎I live in Sabzazar, a neighborhood in Lahore, Pakistan, but part of my heart is always sitting along the banks of the Moxahala Creek back home in Southeast Ohio. When the water rises in Muskingum County or the Punjab plains, who shows up, and who is left waiting? I live in Sabzazar, a neighborhood in Lahore, Pakistan, but part of my heart is always sitting along the banks of the Moxahala Creek back home in Southeast Ohio. ‎ ‎My mother and brother still live right near South Zanesville, just a stone’s throw from Crooksville. When heavy rains hit Perry and Muskingum counties, I don’t need to be there to know what it looks like. I can picture the heavy, chocolate-brown water backing up into the low spots, the damp chill that settles into a basement, the fears of what if the waters reach a house trailer, and that specific, exhausting smell of river mud that takes weeks to scrub out of porch boards and carpet. The worries of if the home has structural damage.. Halfway across the world in Pakistan, the landscape couldn’t look more different. But when monsoon season swells the rivers across the Punjab, the view from the ground is hauntingly identical. ‎ ‎Standing in a flooded doorway feels the same whether you are in Ohio or Lahore. The quiet shock is the same. The ruin of things you worked years to buy is the same. And the very first instinct is to grab your coat, shovel, a chainsaw and a pair of boots and go check on the elderly woman next door.. Start hauling wet furniture, debris to the curb and giving comfort, food and basics to those in need is entirely universal. Watching both worlds at once makes you look at governance differently. It strips away abstract political jargon and leaves you asking one fundamental question: When a community is hit with a crisis, does its system build capable people who can act, or does it leave them sitting on their hands, waiting for permission to survive? ‎ ‎What a Small Ohio Village Taught Me About Governance ‎ ‎Growing up around South Zanesville and Crooksville, you learn pretty early that small-town life relies on a very specific kind of quiet, distributed agency. ‎Crooksville isn’t a rich town. It’s a hard-working Appalachian village of under 1,500 people. But when the creek overflows, nobody sits around waiting for a press conference out of Washington, D.C., or a mandate from the state capital in Columbus. ‎ ‎The response moves in waves because the connections are already wired: ‎On the local levels we see neighbor checks on neighbor. The volunteer fire department turns on the sirens, pulls out the high-water gear, and starts the door to door knocks. At the County level we have the Perry County 911 dispatch and Emergency Management Agency (EMA) start tracking water levels and routing equipment where it’s needed most. At the State level, If the county gets overwhelmed, pre set legal triggers immediately call in the Ohio EMA or the National Guard. ‎ ‎Government here doesn’t replace the community’s instinct to help itself; it validates it, organizes it, and backs it up with real resources. The system trusts the people on the ground to know their own roads. Here in Pakistan, the human spirit is just as generous, if not more so. The impulse toward hospitality, neighborly charity, and mutual support runs incredibly deep. When disaster strikes, ordinary citizens open their wallets and their homes without a second thought. It’s just what they do… ‎ ‎And Pakistan’s has one of the world’s top class military engineering, a massive national disaster agency (the NDMA), and incredible private charities. The raw capacity is immense. Yet, too often, there is a however a very heartbreaking disconnect between that high-level power and the family standing in ankle deep water in a local neighborhood. An ordinary citizen here once described the country to me using a metaphor I’ve never forgotten: a child that was never allowed to stand on its own feet. An infant isn’t helpless because it lacks potential. It’s helpless because it hasn’t been given the space to build muscle, fall over, adjust its balance, and try again. If an authority figure picks the child up every single time it tries to pull itself up, the child never learns to walk—not from a lack of ability, but because the environment denied it the chance to build strength. ‎ ‎That is how systemic learned dependency takes root: Central authorities assume total control, bypassing local municipal councils. Neighborhoods are given no real budget or authority to fix their own drainage or organize local response teams. And when a flood comes, citizens have no choice but to wait for distant, top-down relief. The authorities look at the waiting crowd and say, “See? The people can’t manage without us.” ‎We witness power centralized even further, deepening the exact helplessness it claims to fix. Over generations, people adapt to the system they are given. If a system rewards waiting for a political patron, people learn to wait for patrons. If it rewards local initiative, communities build habits of self-reliance. It is very easy to blame culture or public apathy for civic passivity, but that misses the point entirely. Culture simply reflects the structural incentives people are given to survive and adapt. It is nature vs nurture and we have a break down when these two things fail to promote a cohesiveness and inclusion of what is a community and what that actually means. ‎ ‎Across the globe, the relationship between state control and citizen participation varies wildly, proving that central authority does not have to mean public powerlessness. In China, a deeply centralized state framework actively structures and expects local neighborhood committees and civil volunteer groups to manage community-level crises. Across much of Europe, comprehensive state safety nets exist alongside highly empowered municipal councils and professionalized local volunteer forces.

Pakistan is about to privatise three of its distribution companies — FESCO, GEPCO and IESCO — and call it reform. It is not reform. It is triage, dressed up by three institutions that have run out of the credibility to call it anything else. The government picked these three not because they are the future of Pakistan’s grid, but because they are the only ones healthy enough to survive being sold. Their transmission and distribution losses sit around 9–10 percent, low by Pakistani standards, and their books are clean enough to attract a buyer. That is not a privatisation strategy. That is a garage sale of the family’s least broken furniture while the roof still leaks — supervised by the very carpenters who let the roof rot. And look who is showing up to bid. Expressions of interest have come from a handful of Pakistani business houses — conglomerates looking for a new asset class. Not one of them has run a national distribution network at scale, with the theft, the political interference, and the feeder-level rot that defines an ex-WAPDA DISCO. We have seen this film before. It was called K-Electric. At the time of its 2005 privatisation, KE was drawing a subsidy of roughly Rs 8 billion. Two decades later, it needed a Rs163 billion tariff differential subsidy in the FY2026–27 federal budget just to keep its consumers’ bills from reflecting its own inefficiency. Twenty-fold growth in the subsidy bill is not what privatisation was sold as. If that is what “successful” privatisation looks like, Pakistan should be terrified of doing it two, or eleven, more times. The rot is institutional, and it has three addresses. NEPRA has spent years rubber-stamping tariff hikes, capitulating to circular debt, and failing to enforce performance standards on the DISCOs it already regulates — a ceremonial regulator that confuses notifying a tariff with governing a sector. CPPA-G, sitting at the centre of the power purchase and settlement system, has presided over a circular debt mountain that keeps climbing regardless of who is nominally in charge, and has never been made to answer for it. And the Ministry of Power itself has spent a decade approving capacity contracts, rejecting cheaper foreign offers, and rotating leadership through the same small circle of appointees who preside over one crisis and then the next. None of these three institutions has the standing left to supervise a privatisation of this scale. Handing FESCO, GEPCO and IESCO to private buyers while NEPRA still writes the tariff rules, CPPA-G still runs settlement, and the Ministry still calls the shots is not privatisation — it is a death sentence dressed in a share-purchase agreement, executed slowly, one quarterly tariff adjustment at a time, on the very consumers this reform claims to protect. A regulator that could not discipline a state-owned utility is not going to discipline a private one with dollar-indexed tariff protections and lawyers on retainer. Investors bidding for FESCO, GEPCO and IESCO are already demanding exactly that: payment guarantees in US dollars, contractual protection against future renegotiation, and freedom to slash staff. Pakistan is not privatising its grid. It is handing three of its most valuable state assets to whoever negotiates the toughest exit clause, under a regulator, a market operator, and a ministry with no track record of holding anyone to account. There was a better road, and Pakistan turned it down. In 2016, Chinese Smart Grid firms — brought to the table personally (Engineer Arshad H Abbasi) in that effort — offered to bring smart grid technology into Pakistan’s distribution network, the same technology that helped State Grid Corporation of China push national transmission and distribution losses down to roughly the mid-single digits in recent years. The proposal on the table was a shared-risk model: China would modernise the DISCOs into smart grids over a decade, splitting recovered losses fifty-fifty with the state. It would have cost Pakistan almost nothing upfront and aligned China’s incentives directly with reducing theft and technical loss — the two diseases actually killing Pakistan’s grid. The Ministry of Power and the Planning Commission rejected it. A parallel 2015 pitch to interconnect Pakistan’s grid with China’s has sat on the drawing board for over a decade. Meanwhile Pakistan built its way into the LNG and imported-coal trap that now drives the very capacity payments crushing consumers and taxpayers alike — a trap Chinese engineers, who have spent thirty years wiring one of the largest and most loss-efficient grids on earth, would likely have steered Pakistan away from. Compare the region. India already exports power to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh and is deepening links with Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Bhutan alone hosts roughly 3,156 MW of Indian-financed hydropower capacity across five major projects — a model of a regional power partner investing in generation rather than merely trading finished electricity. Pakistan, by contrast, cannot even get its own national grid properly connected into Gilgit-Baltistan or Gwadar, a port city that still runs short of reliable power despite sitting at the centre of a multi-billion-dollar Chinese economic corridor. China already has more than 5,000 MW of committed CPEC power capacity inside Pakistan, selected and negotiated by the Planning Commission, and a demonstrated willingness to build hydropower in difficult terrain. It is time to stop pretending Pakistan can manage this alone. Invite China to finance and build the hydropower across GB, AJK and KPK the way India financed Bhutan, and let Pakistan’s surplus eventually be wheeled toward Afghanistan, toward India, even toward China itself — which still needs to retire coal capacity and would gladly take clean power off a friend’s grid. Because that is what China has been, in a relationship most Pakistanis do not need convincing about: a friend when the ledger was empty, a builder when nobody else would build, a partner sweeter than honey and, on the balance sheet of sixty years of cooperation, standing taller than Everest over every other option on the table. NEPRA and CPPA-G have failed

By Saman Aftab The Ebola outbreak in DRC is not getting the required traction from the world despite being categorized as the fastest growing infection so far recorded by the World Health Organization (WHO). Before diving deep into the threats posed by this disease, it is imperative to provide the readers with an overview of this viral infection. An Overview of Ebola Outbreak The Bundibugyo virus, one of the Orthoebolavirus species is responsible for causing severe Ebola disease known as Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD). It is a zoonotic disease, with fruit bats suspected to be the natural reservoir.  With the close contact of a human to the blood or secretions of infected wildlife (including bats or non-human primates), the human gets the infection. Consequently, the infection spreads from one human to other through direct contact with the blood, bodily secretions, and organs of the infected ones. The viral infection can also spread through close contact with the surfaces and materials contaminated with the bodily secretions of the infected individuals. Very similar to the Corona virus, the spread of this infection is particularly high in health-care settings having inadequate sterilization measures in place. Moreover, a direct contact with the infected deceased individuals during their burial can contribute to its spread as well. Incubation period and Clinical symptoms The incubation period for BVD ranges from 2 to 21 days, and infected individuals are not infectious until symptom onset. Fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat may represent as the early symptoms of this disease. But the non-specific nature of these symptoms often makes the diagnosis difficult resulting in delayed detection. Without early detection, the symptoms of this disease aggravate leading to gastrointestinal symptoms and organ dysfunction. In some cases, haemorrhagic manifestations may also occur in the infected individuals. Diagnosis and Treatment In the absence of confirmatory tests such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) or antigen- or antibody-based assays in the laboratory, it becomes a challenge for the health care professionals to differentiate BVD from other endemic febrile illnesses such as malaria. Outbreak control depends on early detection, isolation and care, contact tracing, safe burials and strong community engagement. Since there are no approved vaccines or specific treatments available for BVD, the current mortality rate of 44% to 46% for this disease poses a great threat to the affected communities. Current situation of Ebola outbreak Ebola, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes a hemorrhagic fever, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years. As per the reports of international media outlets, the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread to sixth province as death toll passes 2,100 with 4665 confirmed Ebola cases. The World Health Organization has already warned about its pace- the Ebola epidemic, already the deadliest in the country’s history, is spreading faster than any previous Ebola outbreak. Until now, five Congolese provinces had recorded cases: Ituri, which borders Uganda and South Sudan, North Kivu and South Kivu, Haut-Uélé and Tshopo. The risk of cross-border spread of this infection primarily to Uganda and South Sudan is very high. To make things worse, the response to contain this virus in the DRC is hampered by stretched health services, insufficient clean water and safe toilets. Some of the provinces where Ebola is present are densely populated and have only a weak government presence and largely lacking health infrastructure. North Kivu and South Kivu are also split by the front lines between the Congolese army and the anti-government armed group M23, backed by Rwanda, which has seized vast swathes of territory. This makes the conflict-ridden territory extremely prone to viral spread. Should we be worried? According to WHO official statement, the organization hopes to reverse the spread of this deadly virus in DRC within a span of three months with proper medical intervention. However, the pace with which it is spreading within DRC and bordering areas, it is quintessential to take some preventive measures. Since the globalization of the world was primarily responsible for Covid-19 pandemic, it is essential to have preparedness in advance. The healthcare authorities should establish proper communication channel with their counterparts in DRC to have real time data in hand. Similarly, a stock of screening kits should be maintained in the repository. In our airports and seaports, no preventive measures are in place for the screening of any such disease. To put things into perspective, our agencies working in the airports handle body search of persons and their belongings with no protective gears. They do not even wear any mask while dealing with international flights. Most of the time, those passengers who present with clinical symptoms of disease like coughing, flu or fever tend to wear no mask. This puts the fellow passengers and the airport authorities at risk of many diseases. Therefore, the government should take proper measures in this regard. The seaport and airport personnel should be trained to wear masks and protective gear while handling the flights coming from DRC directly or indirectly. Proper screening booths should be installed having health care professionals equipped with medical kits and personal protective gear. There should be proper sanitization within the airports and seaports vicinities. All these measures will put us in a better position to prevent many contagious diseases beforehand. Prevention should be the top most priority of our health care system only then we can envisage a healthy future. In the end, let us hope the viral infection in DRC subsides before getting out of control.                  

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