THE PROHIBITION OF RIBA IN THE GOSPEL OP JESUS
Christians should he
cautious in their denunciation of Jewish money-lending on interest since
'people who live in glass houses should not throw stones"! The Gospel of
Jesus (s) according to St. Matthew contains evidence of precisely the
same rewriting of the Word of God as it pertains to the prohibition of riba.
After all Jesus had clearly challenged Deuteronomy and had directed the Jews to
& return to the non-usurious path when he declared;
No, you must love your
enemies and help them, and you must lend to them without hoping for any return
[i.e. on your investment); and your reward shall he great, and ye shall be the
children of the Highest: for He is kind even to the ungrateful and the evil.
(Gospel of St. Luke:-6:35)
Now here is a story which a
truly evil-being invented and placed in the Gospel of Jesus (s):
The case is that of a man
going abroad, who summoned his servants and handed over his property to them;
to one he gave five talents, to another two and to another one, each got
according to his capacity. Then the man went abroad.
The servant who got the five
talents went at once and traded with them, making another five talents.
Similarly the servant who got the two talents made another two. But the servant
who got the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s
money.
Long afterwards the master
of those servants came back and set tied accounts with them. Then the servant
who got the five talents came forward, bringing five more; he said, 'You handed
me five talents, sir; here I have gained another five’. His master said to him,
‘Capital you excellent and trusty servant! You have been trusty in charge of a
small sum: I will put you in charge of a large sum. Come and share your master’s
feast.' Then the servant with the two talents came forward. He said, ‘You
handed me two talents, sir; here I have gained another two.' His master said to
him. ’Capital, you excellent and trusty servant! You have been trusty in charge
of a small sum; I will put you in charge of a large sum. Come and share your
master’s feast’. Then the servant who got the one talent came forward. He said,
'I knew you were a hard man, sir, reaping where you never sowed and gathering
where you never winnowed. So I was afraid, I went and hid your talent in the
earth. There’s your money!' His master said to him in reply. ‘You rascal you
idle servant! You knew, did you, that I map where I never sowed and gather
where I never winnowed! Well then, you should have handed my money to the exchangers
(bankers) and I would have gotten my capital with interest (i.e. riba)
when I came back. . . . .
(Matthew - 25:14-27)
And yet the same Gospel of
St. Matthew narrated an incident in which Jesus (s) rented with total
fury in riba. While it was not riba in the form of
interest, as in the above, it was still riba since it was
"business by deception" in which people were being cheated of their
wealth;
And Jesus into the
temple of God (i.e. masjid al-aqsa) and cast out all of them that sold and
bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers (who were
ripping-off the people through riba) . . . and said unto them: It is written,
My house shall be called the home of prayer: but you have made it a den of
thieves.
(Gospel of St. Matthew:- 21:12-3)
There were two kinds of
coins in use at that time. The first secular Roman coins, could not be used in
the Temple because of the graven images of the Roman Emperor on the coins; the
second sacred coins could be used because they were specially minted without
any graven images. The money-changers were cheating the people in the exchange
of secular for sacred coins and vice- versa and this was riba!
Had the Jews accepted the Qur’an
as the Word of Allah the Most High, they would have corrected themselves and
desisted from lending money on interest. But they did not. So long as Jews lived under Muslim rule. i.e. within Dar al-Islam, the opportunity never arose
for them to engage in riba with all its attendant mischief. But
when Muslim rule over Spain came to an end Jews had to flee persecution. Many
of them fled to other parts of Europe and thus lived amidst Christians. It was
in this setting that Jewish money-lending on interest re-emerged, actively
encouraged by Christians. And it created such serious ethical problems that no
less a literary giant than William Shakespeare devoted an entire play, ‘Merchant
of Venice’ to the vice of usurious Jewish money-lending (in the event that it
was indeed Shakespeare who wrote 'Merchant of Venice’).
It is instructive to note
that the dominant forces at work behind the scenes in the French Revolution
were forces which sought to remove all obstacles preventing the emergence of a
fully riba-based economy in Europe. And yet, despite the above
story planted by evil hands in the Gospel to justify riba, the
greatest of all such obstacles was the Roman Catholic Church, hence the
dominant anti-clerical and militarily secular characteristic of the revolution.
The victory against the Church led to full blown riba all over
Europe.
The French Revolution and
the American Revolution which preceded it, were events so momentous in
religious, political and economic history that it was as if an iron curtain
(built by Dhul Qarnain) was breached and two very evil forces (ya’jooj and ma’jooj)
were let loose in the world. The evil of ya’jooj and ma’jooj was the greatest
possible evil. Firstly they created the secular State with its claim to
sovereignty. That was shirk! And the second was riba and next to
shirk, riba was the greatest evil in the world!
The Jews had made capital of
every opportunity for lending money on interest and engaging in other forms of riba
in Europe. But this had led, time and again, to their expulsion from nearly
every European country. The French Revolution put an end to this continuous
assault on Jews for their economic crimes. Now they had unprecedented freedom.
But this led to such unprecedented economic crimes against the German peoples
that it was responsible for the Jewish holocaust which was unleashed by Hitler
on the soil of Europe. It also paved the way for the emergence of today’s
Western Capitalist economy which is based on riba. Riba
then produced a world order based on the economic exploitation of humanity with
an international political system which supported and protected the system of
economic exploitation.
In a revelation located
immediately after the revelation which promulgated the fast of Ramadan and
which therefore came down in the month of Shaban in the year 2Hijri,
Allah the Moss High, warned the Muslims against the economic behavior for which
He had just condemned the Jews;
And do
not (through riba and other forms of fraudulent transactions) wrongfully
acquire the wealth of others, nor employ legal artifices with a view to
devouring sinfully and knowingly, anything that by right belongs to others.
(Qur’an: al-Baqarah. - 2:188)
This is precisely what many
Jews did and have been doing; ever since the Torah was rewritten. In fact the
situation has become much worse with Jews charging interest from other Jews as
well. In the Modem Commentary on the Torah, edited by W. Gunther Plaut, the
editor comments on this aspect of the subject of the prohibition of riba:
The sentiment against taking interest from one's people persisted into post-Biblical
days and was in fact expanded by the Rabbis. A person retraining from charging
it was praised as one who had accepted the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. In
time, however, legal subterfuges were approved that permitted interest-taking,
in order to accommodate changed economic conditions.
As a consequence of the
changes which have taken place a situation has arisen which according to
Gunther Plaut: . . . (is) a total reversal of the original intent of the
Torah . . .
Again in Surah an-Nisa,
the same Surah in which Allah the Most High, revealed the wickedness of
those Jews who changed the Torah to modify the prohibition against riba,
Allah the Most High, again warns the Muslims:
Oh you
who believe! Do not devour one another's possessions wrongfully (through riba
and other forms of fraudulent transactions). Rather let there be amongst you
trade based on mutual goodwill. And do not kill (or destroy) yourselves
(through cheating people of their property). Verify Allah has been most
Merciful to you.
And as
for any who does this with malicious intent and a will to do wrong - soon shall
We cast them into the fine, for this is indeed easy for Allah .
(Qur’an: al-Nisa: 4:29-30)
The lesson from these
revelations was quite instructive. The alternative to riba is trade which is conducted on the basis of mutual goodwill. Trade can never
engender mutual goodwill when it is exploitative - when it is always a rip off!
A Society which embraces riba in its economy will lose that business
culture of mutual goodwill and will instead, witness such a corruption of
economic life as would result in the collapse of values and the emergence of
grave social discards.
Grave social diseases in
turn lead to violence and such societies and civilizations self-destruct. Allah
the Most High, warns of such a fate when He says:
...soon shall We cast
them into the fire and this is indeed easy for Us.
(Qur’an:
al Nisa 4:30)
to be continued . . . .
