1) Hindering Human Power:
Usury hinders the productive human power as it encourages people to neglect their works and to be lazy, and human life gets advanced and civilized only when people pool their physical and intellectual efforts towards construction and development. Usurers who find it easy to increase their money through usury get used to laziness and hate forced labour and anything that requires hard working. The thing that deprives people of their livelihood; as it is well known that construction, crafts, and trade are the pillars of people’s life.
Moreover, it is not only usurers who stop being a productive power but also many workers and businessmen could leave their works because of the difficult economic problems that usury causes to them. Those who suffer under the capitalist system find no body to help them but usurers who lend them money at exorbitant rates of interest that takes away the fruits of their labour. These economic problems have a very passive effect on the workers’ productivity. Besides, usury results in economic recession and unemployment which hinder the working power in any human society.
2) Preventing Money from Circulation:
As usury hinders part of the productive human power, it prevents money from circulation. Money circulation to society is exactly like blood that circulates in the body, and water that runs in orchards. Preventing money from circulating has very bad effects on the society just like arteriosclerosis or the blocks that prevent water from running.
Allah (exalted be He) frighten those who hoard money and threaten to give them a painful retribution:
(Those who hoard the gold and silver, and do not spend them in the way of Allah, promise them (O Muhammad) a painful retribution (34) The day will come when their gold and silver will be heated in the fire of Hell, then used to burn their foreheads, their sides, and their backs: “This is what you hoarded for yourselves, so taste what you have hoarded.) (35) (Surat Al-Tawbah {Repentance})
Allah sent us divine laws to guarantee the continuous flowing of money to all the members of the society, and not for it to be monopolized by the rich. Allah says in surat (AL Hashr, (Exile), verse 7) : (Thus, it will not remain monopolized by the rich of you.)
Usurers, because of their cowardice and their desire to earn as much money as possible, do not contribute in useful projects or economic business except with the amount that guarantees that money will be back tenfold. When they feel that they are in danger or that they wish for a higher interest in the long run, they keep their money from people. That is why people fall in a great distress when they became short of money. Besides, they do not lend money unless they guaranteed a profit more than the interest of the debt.
3) Inflation:
“ Inflation” means a continuing increase in the prices of goods and services because their amount does not keep up with the demand for them, or a surplus without the ability to expand the amount of supply. Inflation has direct and indirect causes, and usury is one of its indirect ones. This is because usurers, although they demand high rates of interest, compel the owners of commodities and services to increase the latter’s price. It goes without saying that inflation is very harmful to people especially those who have fixed salaries such as employees and workers; as their actual salaries decrease. If the government tries to find a way out by increasing salaries, this increase happens neither quickly nor in the proper time. That is why, men of intellect, politicians, and economists should work on fighting inflation especially the one that economists describe as “rampant inflation.” In this kind of inflation, prices increase in an exorbitant way, and usury is one of its main causes. Therefore, fighting inflation is exactly like fighting a serious disease.
4) Recession and Unemployment:
When there is a great increase in the prices of commodities and services, people stop buying them either because they cannot afford the price or because the price will exhaust their budget. When people refrain from buying, goods will remain unsold in the stores and shops. In this case, factories will reduce their production and, as a consequence, they will get rid of some of their workers and employees; or factories may stop their production completely and, as a consequence, workers and employees will be a surplus labour. At this point, when usurers feel that the market is declined, they add salt to injury and stop lending money or withdraw it altogether, which brings about economic convulsions.
This is really astonishing because money is available but it is hoarded in the usurers’ safes. In spite of that, people have to buy their needs but they cannot afford the price, and workers need to work but there is no place for them in factories or companies either because the latter are in bad a need for money or because they need to sell their goods.
Usury has a bad effect on the trade cycle. That is why, Islam prohibited it in order to maintain this cycle, and it made a lot of legislations to prevent the centralization of money in the hands of the few. Today, America; the master of capitalism, is suffering from a frightening terrorism crisis.
When the nations are shackled like this, they keep working and working and working and get nothing; as their efforts end up to usurer’s safes. That is why, individuals in the society cannot get all what they need. However, the government imposes more taxes and increases prices in order to reduce the deficit in its payments. As a result, many revolutions broke up, people died, and all what is happening in the world is not satisfying.
Sometimes, the country fails to pay off its debts and decides to write them off exactly like what happened in Cuba in 1961, and in North Korea in 1974. Dr. Stuart Greenbawn, the professor of banking and finance in the university of North Western, said:” Imagine yourself as one of the dictatorial rulers in Latin America, and you sank heavily in debts. Then, if you agreed to the conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and decreased the imports, for example, you will be attacked through protest demonstrations and rebellions, and; on the other hand, if you refused to pay off your debts , you will be renounced by the international community and the international loan markets. Hence, When you get dead sure that the first solution will hang you on a tree branch, you will, inevitably, go for the second one.”
5) Economic Deviation:
Moreover, one of the bad effects of usury is that it deviates economy from its normal course. Usurers pay to those who give them more profit, and the one who takes the usurious loan do not invest the money except in the fields that give him a profit that exceeds what is imposed by usurers. That is why, the issue is an issue of cupidity which takes people away from the useful projects that works for the good of the society, to invest their money, instead, in the more profitable projects.
6) Extravagance and Taking risks:
It is too easy to get money through usury as long as the usurer guarantees that he will take his money back. That is why, those who have no experience become greedy and take usurious loans and get involved in projects that could be doomed to fail or in business which has more to do with gambling rather than clean business. When this kind of business spreads, it harms the economy of the nation. Usurers do not refrain form lending money to those people because they do not care about the means through which they will invest their money, but rather they care about getting their money back with its interests.
Islam orders us to prevent extravagants from spending their money as they pleases for the nation’s wealth not to be lost. Allah says in surat Al- Nesaa (Women, verse 5) : (Do not give extravagants the properties that Allah has made a means of support for you)
Notice here the word “Your” which means that the money of extravagants is a collective ownership and the nation may make use of it. For, usury centralizes the nations’ money in the hands of adventurers and ignorants who waste it. what is worse is that usurers can take hold of the people’s houses, farms, factories and stores.
The easiness of the usurious loan encourages people to be extravagants and to waste their money. The American “Time” mentioned, in its study concerning the Third World debts at the beginning of this year that Liberia sank heavily in the usurious debts as a result of hosting the meetings of the Organization of African Unity. The ” Time” also mentioned that Central African Republic spent over 5 million dollars (i.e. the half of its annual budget in 1977) during the coronation of Emperor Bokasa.
Al Maraghi said because borrowers can take money without an immediate exchange, The Devil tempts them to buy luxury goods, which leads to the increase of their debts to the extent that they became overburdened with them. Hence, when the time comes for their debts to be paid off, they keep procrastinating till the debtors put their hands on their properties and they become poor and destitute. Allah is right when he says: (Allah makes usury to wane and makes almsgiving fruitful)
7) Putting the Muslims Money in the Hands of their Enemies:
The most dangerous thing that could befall the Muslims is the depositing of their money surplus in the usurious banks; as this could divest them of the tools of economy and of the force majeure in the exchanges and put it in the hands of the Jewish emperors of money who gained full control over the money markets . Besides, the interests that usurers pay us is considered to be the price of their (the Jewish emperors of money) control over the international liquidity. source:Imanway.com
