Do religion and economics have anything to do with each other, for instance in the debt crisis of poor countries?

Yes, very much so. It is precisely because this link is ignored that poor countries fall into a dependence on interest from which they can hardly escape. Islam forbids interest and puts partnership in its place, where profit and loss are shared.

Many poor countries have been paying interest on old loans for years. Yet the debt keeps growing, and much of what they earn goes into repayment. When you lend money to a poor person and charge interest on it, you make him dependent for good. This is not about individual people. It lies in the system itself.

Islam starts from a simple observation. Money does not multiply by itself. Put it in a drawer and it stays exactly as it was. It only grows when a person creates something with it through effort and skill, and it can just as well be lost. The interest system ignores this and demands that money must grow in every case, even when the borrower's business fails.

That is why the Holy Qur’an forbids interest but permits trade. Once interest is removed, a different model emerges almost on its own, namely partnership. Whoever provides money shares the risk. Even a bank would then have to look carefully at whom it trusts and what the money is used for. Honesty and trust move to the centre of the economy, rather than profit at any cost. In the early days of Islam, people entrusted their wealth to honest merchants who worked with it and shared both profit and loss with them.

Why does the world not take this path? The knowledge is there. What is missing is selflessness and a sense of being answerable to God. The verse above about the debtor in hardship shows the attitude that matters. Whoever is able should give the one in difficulty more time or cancel the debt altogether. So religion has a great deal to do with economics, because it asks how we treat those who are weaker.