Most of the material in this article has been taken from a lecture delivered by a Scholar in Australia a few years ago. Before reading this article please read the article “Interest and the Modern Banking System” in November 2006 archives on this website to get the full value out of this article.
Allah says in the glorious Quran “O you who have believed, fear Allah and give up what remains [due to you] of Riba (interest), if you should be believers. And if you do not, then be informed of a war [against you] from Allah and His Messenger. But if you repent, you may have your principal – [thus] you do no wrong, nor are you wronged” [Al Quran, 2: 278-279].
Narrated by Abu Hurayrah The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “A time is certainly coming to mankind when only the receiver of Riba will remain, and if he does not receive it, some of its vapour will reach him”. Ibn Isa said: “Some of its dust will reach him.” (Sunan of Abu-Dawood Hadith 3325)
Riba is generally translated as Interest. But the fact is that Riba is a broad term (and there is no single word in the English language to describe it correctly hence it is translated as Interest) and the consensus prevailing among Muslims throughout history has been, and continues to be, that Riba among other things, includes interest. In this article, I will only concentrate on two aspects of Riba: Interest due to time and Riba due to deception.
If Allah and his Messenger are at war and we are sleeping then something is wrong. It is obligatory for an Islamic state to eradicate Riba (interest) from the society, otherwise they will be at war with Allah and his Messenger; and that is exactly what is happening today.
Why Allah has given such a stern warning. The answer is in the fact that Allah has told us that herein lies the greatest danger of all: if you allow this door to be opened (i.e. the door of interest) the poison of Riba (whoever will be injected with it) will paralyse you. The enemy will be able to take control of you. Do not let this door to be opened.
To understand one of the aspect of Riba let’s take an example: I pass on $200 to you and you are obliged to return $400 to me in five years; time is what is responsible for the increase. Today this is known as lending money on interest. In other words, the money lender argues that time equals money.
What the modern day banker does is that he reaps what others plant. He is like a pimp who lives of the sweat of others. This is oppression that some people sit down very comfortably in their beachfront homes and drive Mercedes Benz while the rest of humanity work like jackasses in order to allow them to live the affluent life.
When interest enters into a society, the bloodsucking predatory (a predator lives of the flesh of other animals) elite will now take control of the market and they will suck the blood of the masses. So when an economy is based on Riba, the rich will keep on getting richer while the masses will keep on growing poorer and poorer.
The banker might argue that he is running a business but as Allah Says in the glorious Quran “But Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest” [Al Quran, 2:275]. What is the difference between business and Riba? The brief answer to this question is that it is in the essence of a business transaction that you must accept the possibility of either a profit or a loss, but if this possibility is not there then it is not business; and so risk free investments are not business transactions. It is in the essence of the Riba (Interest) transaction that the possibility of loss is eliminated. The money lender is immunised from loss. He can only make a profit, he cannot suffer a loss. That is why Riba does not qualify as business.
An economy in which the rich will permanently remain rich (barring exceptions) and the wealth does not justly circulate means that poor will remain poor. If the rich is permanently rich and the poor is permanently poor, that is slavery; it is economic oppression. That is why Islamic economics is designed in such a way that wealth circulates in the economy in which this type of economic oppression (in the world we are living today) is eliminated.
What happens when money is lent on interest? It’s not only the case where the elite live of the sweat of the masses, it is more than that. When the money lender is immunised from loss, the implication would be that wealth will no longer circulate justly through the economy. Around the world today for those who have eyes to see, and who do not spend their days and nights eating Halwa, watching movies and partying, the modern economy is precisely this economy. And they call it the best model of economy ever experienced by humanity. This is the best model? Have you no shame? Do you think we have the brains of a Jackass? An economy in which wealth no longer circulates, an economy in which rich are permanently rich and the poor are permanently imprisoned in poverty, and you call that progress! This is not progress; it is new economic slavery which has descended upon mankind.
Another aspect of Riba is which is based on deception as narrated by Anas ibn Malik: The Prophet, peace be on him, said: "Deceiving a mustarsal [an unknowing entrant into the market] is Riba (Suyuti, al-Jami al-Saghir, under the word ghabn; Kanz al Ummal, Kitab al-Buyu, al-Bab al-thani, al-fasl al-thani, on the authority of Sunan al-Bayhaqi)
The biggest ripoff is what is taking place in our times.
The currency used at the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) time was mainly gold and silver. The well known hadith states "Gold is to be paid for by gold, silver by silver, wheat by wheat, barley by barley, dates by dates, and salt by salt - like for like, equal for equal, payment being made on the spot. If the species differ, sell as you wish provided that payment is made on the spot". (Muslim)
So if it is not like for like it is Riba (as explained in the hadith of Bilal [may Allah be pleased with him] bringing dates to the Prophet peace be upon him). What is common to all the six things mentioned in this hadith? They were all used for some time or the other for money. The second thing which is common among all of them is that the value of the money is in the money i.e. they all have intrinsic value.
One day Europe was attacked from the inside and the Europe which was Christian lost its Christianity. The Christian Europe fought a ferocious battle against interest. When French Revolution occurred, the back of the Christian Church was broken in Western Europe, while the Back of Christian Church in Eastern Europe was broken after Bolshevik Revolution. When Church lost its stronghold the Jews were delighted. Because the Christians were waging war for centuries against the Jews: they were not allowing the Jews to lend money on Interest. The Jews always wanted to lend money on Interest; because they had changed the Torah (in which Riba was prohibited) and the Torah now says (in context): “do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.[Deuteronomy 23:18-21].
Now with the French Revolution, economy based on Riba emerges in Europe for the first time. And of course after Bolshevik Revolution this possibility was also open in Eastern Europe. The banks not only started to lend money on interest, they started to issue paper as money. When the governments saw banks were getting richer by issuing paper as money, the governments took over the paper. Then gradually Europe started to conquer rest of the world at the point of the sword. So a white world order emerged at the point of a sword in which Europe now ruled the world. When they took over most of the world, one of the most important things they wanted to do was to dismantle the system of real money (e.g. gold and silver) and replace it with paper money. They achieved this eventually. Europe would not decolonise and handover, for example, Pakistan to Muhammad Ali Jinnah or Indonesia to Sukarno unless Europe was insured that the new financial system was in place in which real money was replaced with paper money.
At the beginning when paper money was introduced it was redeemable for Gold. In USA until 1920’s you could take $20.67 in notes to the bank and ask for one ounce of gold in return and you would get it. When the banks and the governments issued paper money, they gave their word that this is the value of the paper and they even printed on Dollar bills “In God We Trust” (in other words when we give our word to you that $20.67 is equivalent to one ounce of gold, our word is as good and as solid as the word of God). But in 1933 something strange happened: Uncle Sam (i.e. US Government) was broke. So guess what Uncle Sam did? In April 1933 Uncle Sam enacted legislation prohibiting all Americans from keeping gold. Americans had to return any gold they had (not jewellary but coins and bullion) to Uncle Sam and he will give you paper in return, and you have to trust in Uncle Sam that his word is as good as the word of God. So Americans gave their gold to Uncle Sam. If they caught you with gold after a certain date then you could be fined $10,000 and could spend a maximum of 10 years as a guest of Uncle Sam in one of his prisons. So Americans took their gold and got back paper in return. After Uncle Sam had collected the gold, he changed his word (these are values of those who economically rule the world today). Uncle Sam changed the price of gold from $20.67 to $35 an ounce of gold (the catch was that only foreigners could sell their gold at the new higher price). American people woke up that morning realising that their own government had ripped them off of nearly half their wealth.
This is a transaction based on deception which Prophet (peace be upon him) described as Riba. Why did all this happen? It is because the value of the real money is in the money. The definition of the paper money is that value of the money in the paper money is not in the money, therefore, the value can be CHANGED. Every time the value of the money is changed the value of the money goes down. What happens when the value of money goes down? The first thing is that there is a massive transfer of wealth from the masses to the predatory elite (which in the above mentioned case was the US Government). What is the second thing that happens? The answer is this: I worked for the whole month I got my salary in gold I could buy a camel; after ten years I could still buy a camel with that salary, after fifty years I could still buy a camel, but when I get my salary in paper I could buy a camel, few years later with my salary I can’t buy a camel with that money anymore (it will only buy a jackass now), so now I am beginning to feel like a jackass because someone has ripped me off. Where did my money go? If you can answer this question (i.e. who took my money and where did it go and how did they take it?) you would understand the game that they are playing. A few years later I cannot even buy a jackass anymore, I can only buy a goat; a few years later I cannot even buy a goat, I can only buy a chicken with that money.
How is this taking place? They started with paper being redeemable for gold and then came 1933 where they ripped people off of almost half their wealth. In 1944 after the end of World War II they consolidated the system with the creation of international monetary system. The new international monetary system now emerges from upstate New York in the form of Bretton Woods agreement. At Bretton Woods they decided that no longer paper will be redeemable for gold; only one paper will be chosen to be redeemable for gold. The one paper which was chosen was the US Dollar. So this was a major blow to the integrity of money. The second thing they did was that the only people who can come to Uncle Sam to redeem money for gold would be governments (through Central Banks). So now the entire system lost 99% of its integrity (because the masses cannot redeem paper for gold). Nobody from 1944 to 1971 redeemed their paper for gold. The Vietnam War took place in the late sixties and Uncle Sam printed a lot of paper to finance the war, and Uncle Sam did not have gold to back the paper. At Bretton Woods they had fixed the price of gold at $35 an ounce. So in September 1971 the British Government came with 3 Billion US Dollars and asked for gold. Uncle Sam knew that the game was up. Because in the coming months other governments would start coming in and demanding gold for the US Dollars they had in their Central Banks. So Richard Nixon addressed the American nation and said (in context), we gave our word but we do not have to keep our word, and we will no longer honour our obligation under Bretton Woods to redeem paper for gold from Central Banks. Therefore, since September 1971 there is no legal link between paper and gold.
Now all they have to do (those who want to rule the world) is to take control of money. Anyone who can take control of the money can control the world. The elites can attack paper so it goes down and down and down. When paper goes down and down, there is a massive transfer of wealth to that bloodsucking predatory elite, the second thing that happens is that wages lose their value because prices go up and up. As wages lose their value, the masses are now imprisoned in something called slave wages. When masses are imprisoned in slave wages you can now control them, you can now rule them.
The rip off has taken place. The thieves have looted our money. The rich have now grown filthy rich and the masses are now in miserable poverty from which there is no way out.
Do you know what happened to Indonesian Rupiah? IMF had issued Indonesia a clean bill of health (an economy which is strong). Indonesia is a major oil producing country. It has land which is very fertile. It has a big and energetic population. It has abundance of mineral resources. There is no reason why Indonesia should be poor. The IMF concurred that Indonesia has a healthy economy. Suddenly the Indonesian Rupiah was attacked by the bloodsucking predatory elite and the banking centres around the world. As a result, the Rupiah falls. Before the crisis, the exchange rate between the rupiah and the dollar was roughly 2000 Rupiah to 1 USD. The rate had plunged to over 18000 Rupiah to 1 USD at times during the crisis. Indonesia lost 13.5% of its GDP that year. In the process of bringing down the Indonesian money, they robbed the Indonesian people of probably more than half of their wealth. Half of Indonesia is instantaneously reduced to below the poverty line. Guess what is the poverty line: $29 a month. All this is happening because we accepted paper as money.
This economic system is driving some of our sisters to sell their bodies for a few dollars. They have no choice in order to get bread to feed their children. It is driving many to live a life of crime. Others are dying every day of hunger (please check out the statistics in the article “Interest and the Modern Banking System"). What will Allah do on the day of Judgement to those who are still eating Halwa and living a carefree life, while the predatory elite have gone filthy rich?
Now that Riba has engulfed the entire world what is going to happen? There is no certain answer to this question, but economists are coming up with certain predictions:
[1] The paper money (fiat currency) system will eventually collapse. First of all the US Dollar will collapse and this disease will slowly spread throughout the world. This would mean that Governments will not be able to print paper anymore.
[2] The likely scenario is that future money will be electronic money. And who creates electronic money? The banks; this would mean that whoever controls the banking system will control the world.
[3] Because governments will lose power, and commodity prices will soar after the collapse of the US dollar, there is a chance that centrally planned systems (in which bureaucrats decide everything) will come into existence. This could in turn result in wars breaking out to take control over the resources.
To get further insight into how this debt based economic system works, I would recommend the following books (they can be purchased from the internet):
The Problem with Interest by Tarek El Diwany
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Empire of Debt by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin
The Coming Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from it by James Turk and John Rubino
The Final Crash by Hugo Bouleau http://www.finalcrash.com/
The Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown (http://www.webofdebt.com/)
I would also recommend that you read the article “The Other Kind of Terrorism” http://www.islamic-finance.com/item115_f.htm
Please also watch the documentaries by John Pilger "War by Other Means" http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-5399796928596929639 "The New Rulers of the World" http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-7932485454526581006 and "Apartheid Did Not Die" http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-6343784518626528037
In addition, watch these interesting analyses by Ron Paul: "The End of Dollar Hegemony" http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-8327695139643041382 ; "Federal Reserve, Banking and Economy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_G0MqAqq8
All this has happened because the humanity, with its limited intelligence, opened the door of Riba. The revelation had told us long before not to open this door, but now after hundreds of years later we are realising what a big mistake this was!
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