Allah's War Against the One Who Deals in Interest

Allah (swt) has declared war against those who deal in interest. He says:

— O you who believe, fear Allah, as He should be feared, always conscious of Him. And He is with you wherever you are:

— constantly watching, giving rules and regulations, aḥkām, to be followed and to be avoided — so fear Allah (swt), and give up whatever remains due to you from ribā, if you are believers. This is a command: as soon as a person becomes Muslim, whatever transactions he was previously involved in that carried ribā must be forgone entirely — let go, it is ḥarām, no more interest — and where this is not done, Allah gives notice of war, a declaration of war against Allah and His Messenger. What befalls a person who declares war against Allah and His Messenger? Ribā is interest, and interest is exactly this declaration of war, as simple as that. There are more than eight, nine, ten āyāt in the Qurʾān dealing with ribā, and hundreds of aḥādīth of the Prophet (peace be upon him) on the same matter, but this āyah alone is sufficient to show the atrocity of the crime in the sight of Allah (swt).

Anyone observing what has happened to individuals and to nations can see the extent of the harm incurred by dealing in ribā. Nations go bankrupt: how could a country, with everything at its disposal, still go bankrupt? Because the IMF — controlled by the Zionist lobby, controlled by the powers behind it — lends money to countries just as it lends money to individuals, and when the debt cannot be repaid, the country is declared bankrupt, called a banana republic, its own currency worth nothing, no money at all. Everything is controlled this way, through the system called interest within capitalism — ḥarām. Individual companies go bankrupt too, and beyond bankruptcy this causes depression: depression in the family, recession in the country, a failure to pay debts alongside economic paralysis, rising unemployment, the bankruptcy of many companies and many countries. The sweat of people and their daily hardship is poured directly into the payment of those who charge this interest, so that the same people constantly grow richer while the community continues to suffer — one of the ways distinct social classes are created, the money accumulating into the hands of a few. This may indeed be one of the very wars Allah (swt) warns of, against those who deal in ribā.

All who participate in a ribā transaction — whether the principal parties, the go-betweens, the intermediaries, the banks, or the commission agents — are cursed by the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him) reports that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) cursed the one who takes ribā, the one who writes it down, the one who facilitates it, and the one who witnesses it, saying that they are all equal in that sin. It is therefore not permitted to hold a job as an underwriter of ribā, or in its accounting, its estimation, its collection, its deposit, or in guarding it. In general, it is forbidden to participate in it in any way whatsoever. Full stop. Period.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was eager to show the wickedness of this particular disease: ribā has seventy-three gates, he said, the least of them like a man who fornicates with his own mother; and verily, the worst of ribā is a Muslim's honour — for when a person defames a Muslim, makes iftirāʾ, false slander, against a Muslim, dishonours him, betrays him, calls an honest man dishonest, this is worse even than ribā itself, which is already like fornicating with one's own mother. We seek refuge in Allah. Again, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that a single dirham a man spends, knowing he gained it from ribā, is worse than thirty-six instances of zinā. One dirham. Because this is a social disease, not an individual one: it affects not only the one who takes it, but everybody else besides, and the generations to come. The prohibition of ribā is general, and is not confined to what takes place between the wealthy and the poor, as many believe, but applies generally, to any two persons in any situation — however much the same thing each already has, it remains ribā, still ribā, still ribā. Many rich merchants and businessmen have lost their wealth this way, to the bank, or to whatever liquidators came to collect it. The least of its evils is that it wipes out the blessing, the barakah, upon money, however abundant it may seem: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said that money gained through ribā, however large the amount, always ends in scarcity, in paucity. The unlawfulness of ribā is not confined to a high rate of interest, but applies to any amount, however small.