Necessity, Repentance, and the Debt of ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib

The usurer, it is said, will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment in a state of insanity, as though struck by Shayṭān. Yet in spite of the atrocity of this crime, Allah (swt) accepts repentance from it, and explains the way out, saying to those who practise usury:

— but if you repent, you shall have your capital sums; you shall not deal unjustly, and you shall not be dealt with unjustly. This, Allah (swt) says, is the best justice of all. A Muslim must guard against this crime and recognise its dreadfulness. Where a person is obliged to place money in a bank that deals in interest, for fear that it would be lost or stolen if kept under his own bed instead, this is treated as done out of ḍarūrah, necessity, and the ʿulamāʾ have given permission for it — comparable to the case of a person who eats unlawful meat for fear of dying of starvation. He should still seek Allah's forgiveness, and keep searching for a lawful substitute for the situation he is in. He should never ask the bank for the interest; but if interest is added to his account regardless, he must get rid of it by spending it on something lawful, without ever expecting any ḥasanāt in return, because Allah (swt) accepts as ṣadaqah only what is ṭāhir, pure, lawfully gained — this money is dirty money, filthy money, ḥarām money, and nothing may be got out of it for oneself. If a poor Muslim is seen at a hospital, unable to buy his medicine, the money may be given to him, simply to help him, not as ṣadaqah in the sense of hoping for reward, only as a way of getting rid of it. In no case may it be spent or used for one's own profit — to buy food, clothes, pay rent, or provide for a wife, children or parents — nor may it be counted toward the zakāh due, nor used to pay taxes to the government. Still ḥarām, still ḥarām, still ḥarām.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) announced that the first ribā he was going to abolish was that owed to his own uncle, ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. According to the mufassirūn, the interest owed to him came to exactly ten thousand dinars — a dinar being a gold coin of 4.4 grammes, so that ten thousand dinars comes to forty-four kilograms of gold. At the rate current at the time of the telling — one kilo of gold reckoned at thirty-two point one five ounces, and thirty-nine thousand two hundred and seventy-four dollars and sixty cents per kilo bar — forty-four kilograms came to some one million, seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars, owed to him in interest, not yet in his hand, by people bound to pay it under the principles of the jāhiliyyah. And that is without accounting for fourteen hundred years of inflation since. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) forfeited that entire sum, to serve as an example to the ummah of forfeiting and abandoning interest. No excuse of losing millions of dollars stands against this: interest is interest, and that is the end of the matter, khalāṣ.