invested in halal avenues: "there is no such thing as an Islamic or non-Islamic bank. So let us stop this controversy about bank interest." Dr Abd-al-Munim Al-Nimr, an ex-minister of 'Awqaf in Egypt, publicly stated that banking interest cannot be considered riba. This has been explained as in keeping with the tendency for rulers to get the fatwas they want on "key policy issues" from "official" ulama "whose task it is to legitimize" rulers' policies. (Historians note the practice is not new and that jurists legitimized interest for awqaf (religious endowments) during the late period of the Ottoman rule (as mentioned above). Modernist position In addition to service to government, another motivation of jurists opposing the formulation interest=riba has been the arguments of Islamic Modernism of the 20th century Modernist jurists, mentioned above. (Other Modernists interpreters of riba include those on the India-Pakistan subcontinent including: Ja'afar Shah Phulwarai, Tamanna Imadi, Rafiullah Shihab, Yaqub Shah, Abdul Ghafur Muslim, Syed Ahmad, Aqdas Ali Kazmi, and Abdullah Saeed.) Islamic Modernists tend to "emphasize the moral aspect of the prohibition of riba, and argue that the rationale for this prohibition as formulated in al-Qur’an was injustice and hardship." Modernists believe pre-Islamic lending practices in Makka constituted riba and are much different from and more problematic than contemporary bank lending, which do not involve riba, according to sources such as M.A. Khan and The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. Makkan lending (Riba al-jahiliya) involved high interest rates charged by rich money lenders to poor customers who borrowed for purposes of consumption, and led to the accumulation of large debts and often financial slavery. In contrast, most money loaned in contemporary society is for commercial purposes and investment, transacted between sophisticated parties, offering/paying interest rates determined and kept low by a competitive and regulated market — most of these features not in existence when the Quran was revealed. Furthermore contemporary bankruptcy laws "protect borrowers against the horrors once produced by riba". They also advance the economic argument that "the goal of eradicating interest is both misguided and unfeasible," because interest is "indispensable to any complex economy". Harm to borrower Islamic Modernist scholar such as Fazlur Rahman Malik, Muhammad Asad, Sa'id al-Najjar, Sayyid Tantawi, differ from the orthodox interpreters in arguing that interest is not riba unless it involves exploitation of the needy. They differentiate between various forms of interest charges advocating the lawfulness of