The Darul Uloom Deoband, country’s largest Islamic seminary, has declared that insurance policy is against the tenets of Islam. “The insurance policy is unlawful as it is based on interest and gambling”, says a recent fatwa from the seminary. The edict issued by Darul Ifta department of Darul Uloom came in response to a query whether it is lawful to get insurance. Earlier, Darul Uloom had declared the job of writing and calculating interest based work in banks and insurance companies as unlawful. The fatwa was in response to whether Muslims can do job in banks or insurance companies.
In another statement the seminary clarified that it did not restrain Muslim women to work along with men; it only suggested that working women should dress properly. “We had only given an opinion based on Shariah that women need to be properly covered in government and private offices,” said Maulana Adnan Munshi, spokesman for the seminary in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. He denied media reports that the seminary was opposed to men and women working together.