The Prophet and different forms of riba

THE PROHIBITION OF RIBA IN THE QUR’AN AND SUNNAH

THE PROPHET AND DIFFERENT FORMS OF RIBA

While the Qur’an had identified ‘lending on interest’ as riba, it was left to the Prophet (s) to elaborate and to explain the many different forms of riba. Perhaps the most important of such explanations given by the Prophet (s) is the hadith reported by Jabir:

The Messenger of Allah (s) cursed the one who takes (i.e. consumes) riba, the one who gives (i.e. pays) riba, the one who records the transaction and the two witnesses thereof He said: They are all equally guilty.

(Muslim)

A similar statement of the Prophet is reported by Abu Juhaifa:

The Prophet cursed the lady who practices tattooing and the one who gets herself tattooed and the one who consumes riba and the one who gives it. And he prohibited taking the price of a dog, and the money earned by prostitution, and cursed the makers of pictures.

(Bukhari)

Thus every time a Muslim writes out a check to pay the installment of a riba-loan (i.e. a loan on interest) which he has taken from a bank for purchasing a house or car etc., he should be aware that he is engaged in riba and that the Prophet Muhammad (s) has cursed him! If he dies without making tauba and without making every possible effort to extricate himself from riba, then he could end up in the fire of hell!

DIFFERENT FORMS OF RIBA

The Prophet (s) declared that there are seventy different kinds or forms of riba;

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: Riba has seventy parts, the least serious being equivalent to a man marrying his own mother (which is the polite language of the Prophet with which to describe the abominable act of a man having with his own mother).

(Sunan Ibn Majah)

But he did not identify all seventy. In fact he described only a few of the different forms of riba. The implication, therefore was that there are, or will be, forms of riba existing in the world which have not been specifically identified as such by the Prophet (s). Indeed Umar (r) lamented the fact that the Prophet (s) died without specifically identifying all the different types of riba:

Ibn Umar said: Umar delivered a sermon on the pulpit of Allah’s Apostle saying ..... I wish Allah's Messenger had not left us before he had given us definite verdicts concerning three matters, i.e. how much a grandfather may inherit (of his grandson), the inheritance of al-kalala (the deceased person among heirs there is no father or son) and the various types of riba.

(Bukhari)

It remains for the scholars of Islam to use inference and analogy to locate other forms of riba not identified by the Prophet (s) and which may not have appeared as yet in the world at the time of the Prophet (s), but have now made their appearance, particularly in this evil age which has witnessed the transcendental release of ya’jooj, ma’jooj and al-Masih al-Dajjal! Muhammad Asad has envisaged a creative role for Islamic scholarship in this respect. He observes:

... while the Qur’anic condemnation of the concept and practice of riba is unequivocal and final, every successive Muslim generation is faced with the challenge of giving new dimensions and a fresh economic meaning to this term which, for want of a better word, may be rendered as 'usury’. 

Here are some of the forms of riba described by the Prophet (s):

1 - Credit transactions (bai muajjal). There are some credit transactions which have been prohibited by the Prophet (s) because they involve riba:

Usama bin Zaid reported the Prophet as saying: Credit involves riba. In another version he said: There is no riba when payment is made on the spot.

(Bukhari, Muslim)

Such a credit transaction would, for example, be one in which an animal is traded for another animal:

Samura b. Jundub said that the Prophet forbade selling of animals for animals when payment was to be made at a later date.

(Tirmidhi, Abu Daud, Nasai, Ibn Majah ami Darimi)

The reason for the prohibition appears to be the element of uncertainty in which death, for example, might occur to an animal, or it may fail ill etc. Such an occurrence can lead to disagreement and conflict between the parties to the credit agreement. Credit is also discouraged because when payment is to be made at a later date one may not be able to make the payment and that could have serious consequences. In Latin America the white plantation owners deliberately encouraged the Indian peasants to take credit and when they could not pay on time they had to give their labor instead. And so the latifundia or Latin American plantation economy was built on a scarcely disguised form of slavery. One of the most powerful statements we have ever heard during our five years in New York came from Tracy Riggs, in African-American inmate at the Morristown Prison in the State of New Jersey. Credit, he said to me, is the first step back to slavery.

The system of riba creates its own self-generating and self-sustaining apparatus in the form of credit-worthiness of individuals. A person has good or bad credit. The system forces every individual to struggle to establish and sustain a good credit record. It does so by punishing those who have bad credit! If someone has never borrowed money on interest and as a consequence, does not possess a credit record, he is looked upon with grave suspicion! 

Source: IMRAN N. HOSEIN

to be continued . . . . 

The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) by Imran Hosein

The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) (Q&A) by Imran Hosein

The Prohibition of Riba in the Sunnah

THE PROHIBITION OF RIBA IN THE QUR’AN AND SUNNAH

CHAPTER FOUR

THE PROHIBITION OF RIBA IN THE SUNNAH

THE STRONG LANGUAGE OF THE PROPHET ON RIBA

The Prophet (Allah's blessings be upon him) emphasized the extreme danger inherent in riba by himself using the strongest possible language in order to warn mankind and Muslims about it He said:

Abu Huraira said that the Messenger of Allah said: Riba is of seventy different kinds the least grave being equivalent to a man marrying (i.e. having sexual intercourse with) his own mother.

(Ibn Majah, Baihaqi)

(I know of people who have accumulated wealth through riba and who, instead of responding with terror in their hearts, are highly offended by the above hadith).

Abdullah Ibn Hanzala reported that the Messenger of Allah said: A dirham (silver coin) of riba, which a man receives knowingly is worse than committing adultery thirty-six times.

(Ahmad)

Baihaqi transmitted it, on the authority of Ibn Abbas, with the addition that the Prophet continued to say: Hell is more fitting for him whose flesh is nourished by what is haram.

Abu Hurairah reported Allah's Messenger as saying; On the night I was taken up to heaven I came upon people whose bellies were like houses which contained snakes which could be seen from outside their bellies. I asked Gabriel who they were and he told me that they were people who had consumed riba.

(Ahmad, Ibn Majah)

Abu Huraira reported that the prophet said; Allah would be justified in not allowing four persons (i.e. four kinds of people) to enter paradise or to taste its blessings: he who drinks habitually, he who takes riba, he who usurps an orphan’s property without right and he who is unmindful to his parents.

(Mustadrak al-Hakim. Kitab al-Buyu'}

Samara bin Jundab reported that the Messenger of Allah said. This night I dreamt that two men came and took me to a holy land whence we proceeded on till we reached a river of blood, where a man was standing and on its bank was standing another man with stones in his hand. The man in the middle of the river tried to come out, but the other threw a stone in his mouth and forced him to go back to his original place. Whenever he tried to come out the other would throw a stone in his mouth and force him to go back. I asked: who is this? I was told: The person in the river was one who consumed riba.

(Bukhari)

We are here reminded of an incident which occurred at an Egyptian cemetery in late seventies and which was narrated by the late blind Egyptian Shaikh, Abdul Hameed Kishk, in one of his public lectures (before the Egyptian government shamelessly silenced him). Here is the story:

An Egyptian grave-digger does not always have to dig a grave. He sometimes only opens vaults into which dead bodies are placed. This is recognized as a form of burial. After the dead body has been interred, the door of the vault is sealed until the next dead body arrives.

Shaikh Kishk narrated the incident in which a grave-digger was one day on a routine job of opening a vault and preparing it to receive a dead body. The funeral was to take place later in the day arid so the vault had to be prepared. As he opened the door he was terrified to see a huge snake inside the vault. He quickly shut the door of that vault and fled in terror! After regaining his composure he attempted to open another vault, and again the same huge snake was inside. Again he fled in terror, but since he had a job to perform for his very livelihood, and a limited amount of time at his disposal to prepare the vault for the burial, he was forced to return and to open a third vault. When he found the same snake in the third vault as well his exasperation knew no limits. His terror gave way to anger. He spoke to the snake and demanded that he be allowed to bury the dead. The snake appeared to understand what was spoken for it promptly left the vault. The moment the burial was completed however, and the vault was about to be closed; the snake reappeared and dashed into the vault just as it was being closed. As the door of the vault came down the grave-digger heard the jaws of the snake crunching the very bones of the dead man.

The grave-digger was certain that there must be an explanation for that horrible scene he had witnessed. He inquired from the dead man’s family as to his way of life and his means of livelihood and was told that the dead man was a money-lender who lent money on interest (riba) and consumed the riba he derived from his loans. Through lending money on interest he had been able to amass a fortune! For this reason a snake from the hell-fire was waiting for him in his grave, and the punishment of Allah, the Most High, was truly dreadful. That was the story!

The ahadith of the Prophet which we have quoted have amply demonstrated the extent of the divine anger at the oppression caused through riba.

The Prophet (s) also reaffirmed the declaration of war from Allah the Most High, and His Messenger in connection with the prohibition of riba in the following hadith:

Jabir bin Abdullah said: I heard the Messenger of Allah say: If any one of you does not leave mukhabarah he should take notice of war from Allah and His Messenger. Zaid bin Thabit said: I asked: What is mukhabarah? He replied: That you have the band for cultivation for a half, a third, or a quarter (of the produce). (The danger here is that it leads, deceptively, to slave labor).

(Abu Daud)

The above hadith should open the eyes of the reader to the enormous dangers involved in riba. It can lead to slavery. Most of the arable land in Pakistan is owned by big absentee landlords. They employ peasant labor to cultivate the land and ensure that such labor is not only permanently available, but is available to them at a heavily discounted price. They employ the system of mukhabarah for literally imprisoning the peasants in a system of permanent poverty. That is riba. And it has produced a system of slavery in Pakistan. If ever the Islamic Movement wins power in Pakistan it will have to move quickly and forcefully to dispossess the big absentee landlords of their tide to the agricultural lands of Pakistan.

It should be clear from the statements of the Prophet presented above that the subject of the prohibition of riba is of supreme importance. Riba poses the gravest of all dangers to which the ummah of the Prophet (s) is exposed today. Nearly every other danger pales into insignificance when compared with it.

Source: IMRAN N. HOSEIN

to be continued . . . . 

The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) by Imran Hosein

The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) (Q&A) by Imran Hosein