USURY AND THE ECONOMIC DISASTER

Prepared by the editorial staff1 of Ra’yat al Islaam magazine

11th edition

Islamic Law is distinguished by its fair system that is inclusive

of all of areas of life. This in and of itself is one of its many
comprehensive special qualities. It safeguards rights,
espouses obligations and preserves the five essential
comprehensive goals:
1. The religion 2. Life
3. Intellect 4. Lineage and
5. Wealth
It has laid out the plans that accurately exact their many
connections: The connection of the slave to his lord, mighty
and majestic, his connection with people of his race, and his
connection with what surrounds him, just as it has forbidden
him by general and specific comprehensive rules from
everything that contributes void as pertains the bodies of
people and their intellects, ruins the hearts and behavior and
destroys wealth and removes its blessing. This is known and
observable. So it (Islamic Law) came by Allah’s favor with
clear guidepost and boundaries the entirety of which is
fairness, mercy, higher good and wisdom.

1
the staff consist of the chief editor: the Noble Shaikh I’zzud Deen ArRamadhaanee, staff members: Umar
Al Haaj Mas’ood, Uthmaan E’esaa and Najeeb Jalwaah.
Verily from the urgent avenues that the Islamic legislation has
attended a high level of care to is the angle of monetary
transactions that categorically fall under the economic system.
This system -whose structure has come to us precisely intact
upon strong and sturdy principles whose basis is the basics
and foundations of belief and moral character- is itself upright
whereas the people have strayed far from acting by it, or it has
itself been distanced away from its being interacted with.
What resulted is oppression, transgression, wronging,
misappropriating rights and devouring money in falsehood
which has caused the nations to equally lose both their
economic and societal safety.

Certainly, the discussion about the worldwide economic

collapse is what nearly everyone is talking about and it is a
topic abundantly multi faceted which a few brief pages in the
front of the magazine only struggle to bear.

Verily wealth is the asab which the lives of mankind revolve

around. It is the adornment of the life of this world.

It is a weapon from the weapons of truth and falsehood.

People are innately made to love it and be tested by it.

It has come on the authority of Ka’ab ibn I’yaadh who said:

I heard Allah’s messenger say:
“erily there is a fitnah for every nation and the fitnah of my
nation is wealth.”
 Wealth is a sorcerer. It beguiles and incites. Nothing can
nullify the effects of this sorcery but deep rooted eemaan and
lofty implementation of the religion that returns wealth back
to its rudimentary purpose for which it was created such as the
establishment of prayer and payment of the zakah. So there as
come on the authority of Abee Waaqid Al Laythee who said:
We used to come to the prophet when the revelation came to
him. One day he said to us: “Verily Allah said: Certainly We
have sent down wealth for the establishment of Salah and
payment of the zakah. If the son of Adam had a valley full of
gold he would love to have a second and if he had a second he
would love to have a third. Nothing can fill the stomach of the
son of Adam except dust and then Allah grants repentance to
whoever repents.”

That is because the wealth is Allah’s property which He placed

in people’s hands and tested them with so as to watch what
they would do regarding it. He, mighty and majestic, will ask
them about it on the day of Judgment. It has come on the
authority of Abee Barazah Al Aslamee who said: Allah’s
messenger said:
“The feet of the slave will not move on Judgment Day until
he is asked about his life and how he spent it, his knowledge
and what he did therewith, his money, where he earned it
from and what he spent it on and his body and how he used
it.”
 True economic growth can never ever come about by
interacting with usury, approaching usury based profits and
devouring people’s wealth in falsehood. Instead this will wilt
and obstruct the work of economic growth. Here we have the
usury based banks in the lands of disbelief upon which the
pillars of capitalism and liberalism are established. They have
transformed the currency which Allah made to judge value,
price goods, be a standard by which to value commodities and
the intermediary for commercial exchange. They have
transformed it into a commodity to be sought in and of itself
and sold as an object, so currency departed away from its
original task which is circulating in the hands of people and
not being hoarded away or unused. This was clarified with
sufficient elaboration by Al Imaam Ibnul Qayyim throughout
his speech concerning the growth potential lying within
currency. He said in I’laam al Muwaqi’een (v.3 pp. 401 and
402):

“Dinars and Dirhams serve as the monetary values for

commodities. Currency is the scale by which the value of
property is known so it must be mandatorily placed in limits
and set, neither inflating nor depreciating.
 This is so in as much as that if currency inflates or
depreciates like the commodity does, then we wouldn’t have
monetary value by which to consider the goods and much
rather they would all (i.e. the goods and the currency)
become commodities.
People’s need of monetary value for consideration of goods
is an essential dire need affecting all.
That is not possible without a price by which to know the
value. This is not possible without monetary currency
continuing upon a single state by which the worth or things
is established.
It (i.e. currency) is not to be assigned worth by something
else, thus becoming a commodity inflating and depreciating,
ruining the transactions of the people, causing decay and
tremendous harm.”

Whoever knows how the stock markets work and what they
contain of trickery and risks, and knows what the currency
exchange markets are built on and how they monopolize the
money, will then know the truthfulness of the speech of Ibn Al
Qayyim and its depth.