My friend Khurshid Ahmad, who has died aged 93, was a pioneering scholar admired for helping to develop the field of Islamic economics as an academic discipline.
In 1973 he founded the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, a centre dedicated to research, education and training that has published more than 400 books and papers. It is now housed at the Markfield Conference Centre in Markfield, Leicestershire.
Khurshid believed that conventional banking methods produce various forms of injustice, and he was deeply opposed to the charging of interest to people who borrow money. Much of his work was based on trying to find alternatives to interest-charging that were compliant with ethical Islamic principles.
Khurshid was born in Delhi, in India, to Nazir Ahmad Qureishi, a journalist and businessman, and Sarwar Jahan. He attended the Anglo-Arabic school in Delhi, then, following the birth of the state of Pakistan in 1947, migrated with his family to Lahore.
After gaining a degree in economics from Karachi University, followed by a master’s in Islamic studies, he taught economics in Karachi at the Urdu College and Karachi University.
He moved to the UK in 1968 to do a PhD, and after setting up the Islamic Foundation, he served as its chairman until his retirement in 2017.
He was awarded a number of honorary doctorates, including by Loughborough University and the University of Malaya in Malaysia.
Khurshid’s wife, Azra (nee Mohebullah), whom he married in 1967, died in 2015. He is survived by their sons, Haris, Salman and Umer, and daughters, Asma, Salma and Fariha, and by his brother, Anis.
