SRINAGAR: Veteran Islamic economist and former Professor of the Aligarh Muslim University, Dr Nejatullah Siddiqi is no more. He breathed his last in California in USA on November 12, 2022. He was 91.
For a long time, he was living with his son, Prof Mohammad A Siddiqui. His funeral prayers were offered at MCA (Muslim Community Association), Santa Clara mosque (USA) on Sunday.
Dr Siddiqui was one of the frontline Muslim economists whose contribution to interest-free banking and micro-finance is considered to be fundamental. He has been a mentor to scores of Kashmir scholars at the AMU.
Born in 1931 in Gorakhpur, Dr Siddiqui taught economics at the Aligarh Muslim University and later at King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There, he was also associated with Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah.
A prolific writer in Urdu and English, he has 63 works in 177 publications to his credit. Some of his works were translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai, and other languages. Gaer Sudi Bankkari (Banking Without Interest), one of his major works has had 27 editions since 1973.
In India, Dr Siddiqui has contributed to the development of interest-free microfinance through Cooperative Model in India. He was associated with Sahulat Microfinance Society since its inception.
In 1982, he was awarded the 1982 King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies. He later became a Fellow at the Centre for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Besides, he was a visiting scholar at the Islamic Research and Training Institute, Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah. He was once associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind also. Post retirement, he was living with his children in USA.
