Considering Bank Interest
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is by Shaykh Nur ad-Din Abu ‘Ubadah ‘Ali ibn Juma’ah. Since the emergence of banks in the modern age, jurists have disagreed on how they conceive the nature of banks. Their differences parallel the disagreement between scholars of conventional law and economists over whether the relationship between banks and their clients is one of lending as held by scholars of conventional law, or one of investment as held by economists. Built upon this difference in taswwir , conception, is of difference in takyif , legal formulation. The jurists who consider this relationship to be financial lending formulate it as a loan which has brought benefit to the lender. Thus, its ruling would be based on it being unlawful usury. But then, the fatwa differed, because some considered this a matter of necessities that are permissible for a Muslim to undertake whenever he is forced to, and is thus based upon the ...