How Did The Idea Of Ansar Finance Come

THE ANSAR STORY… in the words of the Founder and Trustee, Ali Akbar Mohammed

I had been working 10 years when I was offered the chance to buy the Optician’s practice from the retiring owner. What an opportunity I had, but I had to raise £112,500. I immediately contacted my Islamic teachers and asked if they could help me in arranging INTEREST-FREE finance so I could buy the practice. I was prepared to agree on a fair profit and loss arrangement.

To my great disappointment there was no-one who was willing to invest on a profit or loss basis. It came as quite a shock to realise that when it came to money there was no facility established for INTEREST-FREE business financing. There was no QARD HASAN anywhere in UK.

Yes, I could go to any bank and the loan would be easily arranged but at a huge price. That huge price would be having to involve myself in Interest, something I had avoided for so long. I asked myself, why had the Muslim community not established such a facility? Was it that difficult? Are we not capable? Are we lacking in intelligence? The Answer was YES it is difficult, NO we are not incapable and NO we are not lacking in intelligence and expertise.

My mission was staring me in the face. This was reinforced by 2 further incidents:

A friend of mine asked me to help him. A mutual friend of ours had not returned the money he had borrowed from my friend. My friend had asked him several times without any success and was afraid he would become too angry if he spoke to his friend again. He wanted me to speak to this mutual friend and tell him the difficulty he had put my friend in and to pay back the debt.

In another incident, one of my uncles became angry and stopped talking to me for many years. This happened because I asked him to return the money he had borrowed from me some years previously. He was offended because I asked for my money to be returned to me.

As I spoke to other friends I came to know that these sorts of issues were very common place and was causing a breakdown in family relationships and arguments between friends and colleagues. I knew what I had to do.

I convinced 3 of my close friends to join me in my mission to create a QARD HASAN facility for the benefit of the whole community. A facility for members to help each other with money, advice, expertise and sudden financial emergencies. We four managed to convince another 16 of our friends to join us in the project and together we became the 20 founding members of something quite unique, which you now know as, ANSAR.

Ansar has now helped thousands of people with small benevolent interest-free loans and saved thousands of pounds in interest payments. Ansar has helped thousands of people to obey Allah in complying with His prohibition of interest.

“… O you who believe! Fear Allah, and give up what remains (due to you) from Riba (interest) if you are truly believers. And if you do not do it, then take notice of war from Allah and His Messenger…”