Islam will save Malaysia from economic ruin, Hadi says

(Malay Mail Online) – Putrajaya must turn to Islam to find the solution to whatever economic woes faced by the country as all other economic ideologies have failed civilisation, PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said today.

He said imposing new forms of taxation such as the recently introduced Goods and Services Tax (GST) is not an acceptable way to prop up the nation’s economy, especially when the government continues to be plagued by leakages and alleged corruption.

“The solution is not to burden the people with taxes. You must encourage economic activity among the people to help develop the economy,” he said at an anti-GST rally organised by his party’s ulama wing.

“Helping people is not just for the elections. To develop the economy, it means making sure the rakyat can stand on their own.

“We advise the government to remedy the situation by going back to an Islamic economy. Islam is not only about hudud, it is about the economy,” he added.

Hadi said recent history has shown that the two prevailing economic ideologies in the world — capitalism and socialism — have both failed as illustrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the trillions of dollars in debt weighing down the US.

He claimed that both ideologies have no “soul” and are bereft of any spiritual guidance on sin and the afterlife, making them unsuitable for any country in the world, including Malaysia.

“If people can accept the economic ideology of Adam Smith, when he is not Chinese or Indian, or that of socialism and Karl Marx and the like, who were also not Chinese or Indian, then I do not see why they cannot accept an Islamic economy,” he said.