Sunday, October 01, 2006

Accruing Stupidity

Sayyid Shaykh Muhammad al-Ya'qoubi answers many burning questions from Muslims here. Question #14 is interesting:

At one of your light study sessions, it was mentioned that Muslims were allowed to give mortgages to non-Muslims and take interest, but not allowed to take mortgages themselves. At a later date, you explained that this is to deprive the non-Muslim of wealth in this world. Hence, the question I pose is, are we allowed to have interest bearing accounts and also invest where we know there is a guaranteed element of interest to be generated to the policyholder from the varying financial products?

Part of the answer:

According to the Hanafi School, we are allowed to charge interest over a loan we give to a non-Muslim in the non-Muslim land. Under no circumstances are we allowed to borrow money and pay it off with an interest, whether regardless of the lender and the land; it is absolutely haram.

Let's get this straight. Loaning money and charging interest is perfectly alright if the borrower is a non-Muslim. Otherwise, no deal.

And note, this is supposed to deprive and hurt the infidels!

Questions: There are tons of people who need capital to start and maintain their businesses. If rich Muslims can only charge interest when the person who needs the cash is a non-Muslim, then who benefits? Does the "No Interest" rule hurt Muslims or non-Muslims?

I think you can answer the simple questions. It's amazing that these paragons of morality shape their policies out of spite but in reality end up hurting their own brothers.

The Prophet Muhammed (PUBH) deserves credit for this asinine rule:

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