Honourable President of Religious Affairs, Esteemed Ali Erbaş Hodja,

The Honourable President of UTESAV,

Our Esteemed Members,

Esteemed Members of the Press,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Distinguished Guests,

I greet you all with respect and affection.

Welcome to our program on the theme of “Ramadan and Infaq”.

I extend my special gratitude to our President of Religious Affairs, the Esteemed Ali Erbaş Hodja, for accepting our invitation and honouring our program only days before the holy month of Ramadan.

Honourable President, esteemed guests,

At the very beginning of my remarks, I pray to Almighty God for mercy upon our brothers and sisters who lost their lives in the Kahramanmaraş-centred earthquakes. I wish a swift recovery to the injured. May our Lord grant patience and fortitude to our disaster-stricken brothers and sisters and to our nation, and may He bestow relief and comfort upon their hearts.

With God's permission, our state and our nation, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, will emerge stronger from the trauma caused by this disaster, by healing our wounds, by drawing lessons, by taking stock and by increasing our resilience and our faith. We will rebuild and revive our cities together, as one.

We will increase the resilience of our society and our cities; by uniting even more closely than before and by upholding the precious memory of the lives we lost in the disaster of the century and the valuable trusts they left behind, we will leave safer cities to the new generations.

Esteemed President, Distinguished Guests,

As MÜSİAD, with our 13 thousand members and our domestic and international branches, we rushed to the aid of our brothers and sisters from the very first moment of the earthquake, acting almost in a spirit of full mobilization. We are continuing our campaigns and our disaster management efforts without interruption. In order to re-establish commercial life in our provinces affected by the earthquake, we are expanding our activities in the region; within this scope, we are carrying out a matching effort that will keep production going by arranging the transfer of the goods held by our affected members to the facilities of our members in other provinces. With an understanding of unity and togetherness, each of our members is putting a shoulder to the wheel and supporting a brother in difficulty. Reducing the risks that may be faced by our members whose domestic and foreign commercial life has been suspended because of the earthquake, or who cannot ship their supplies or their products, is our priority objective. While meeting urgent humanitarian needs on the one hand, on the other hand we will continue our work without pause so that business and trade life in the region returns to normal. During the holy month of Ramadan too, God willing, we will come together with our disaster-stricken brothers and sisters at iftar and sahur programs, both in the earthquake region and in other provinces.

We are supporting our members in the earthquake region with the understanding of Qard al-Hasan, a practice that our civilization developed by drawing inspiration from our holy Book, the Qur'an. By providing interest-free and grant capital support to our fellow business people affected by the earthquake, we are contributing to the revival of the regional economy. On this occasion, I invite our business world, especially during the month of Ramadan, to put this ancient and beautiful tradition of ours into practice and to help our aggrieved entrepreneurs in the region through qard al-hasan.

Another beautiful and exemplary practice that we as members of MÜSİAD carry out, mostly during the month of Ramadan, is the Zimem Ledger initiative. Through the Zimem Ledger initiative, our benevolent members pay off the credit ledgers of our needy and aggrieved brothers and sisters by dealing only with the shopkeepers, thus setting a beautiful and praiseworthy example of infaq. I call upon our benevolent business people to give in charity through this beautiful practice during the month of Ramadan and to bring joy to our brothers and sisters in need. Let us not forget that one of the most praiseworthy deeds is to scatter joy into sorrowful hearts.

Esteemed Hodja, My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

UTESAV, the International Technological, Economic and Social Research Foundation, established in order to carry out work focused on education, research and publishing, operates like a think tank with the high-quality programs it organizes and nourishes us in scholarly and intellectual terms. I believe that UTESAV, under the chairmanship of Dr. İsrafil Kuralay, will carry out successful work in the new term as well, and I wish it success.

I particularly hope that programs directed at our young people and our universities, which are our most important human strength, will increase in this term and that investment will be made in the new generations. I believe that raising generations that are entrepreneurial and visionary and at the same time attached to their roots and their civilization is the most important responsibility of all of us. In this respect, as the MÜSİAD family, we always plan and carry out our economic and commercial moves with our country, our nation and our ancient values in mind. Within this framework, at the beginning of this week we signed a comprehensive cooperation protocol with İstanbul Commerce University. On this occasion, I once again thank the chairman of the board of trustees of our university, Dr. İsrafil Kuralay. We will continue to expand and deepen our cooperation with universities. Especially this year, by launching commercial diplomacy workshops, we will enable our qualified university students at bachelor's, master's and doctoral level to work more closely with the business world and with MÜSİAD.

Esteemed President, Dear Guests,

As I conclude my remarks with these feelings and thoughts, I pray to my Lord that our meeting on the theme of “Ramadan and Infaq” may be a means of goodness. I extend my gratitude for your presence, above all to our esteemed hodja and esteemed president Prof. Dr. Ali Erbaş and to you, our distinguished guests. I thank the UTESAV management and my esteemed colleagues who contributed to the organization of the program.

I pray that the holy month of Ramadan will bring goodness and abundance to our country, to our nation and to the Islamic World.

May my Lord, by means of these blessed days, protect our nation and the Islamic World from disasters and from material and spiritual, accidental and heavenly afflictions.

May God protect you.

Mahmut Asmalı

President of MÜSİAD