INTEREST SUCKS!

Every non-Muslim and even the so-called secular Muslims scoff at the theory of interest-free banking proposed by Islam. They say interest is an essential part of the financial world and without it the whole system of banking would collapse. So in their opinion Islam is a medieval religion which cannot handle the problems of today’s ‘modern and prosperous’ society. Let me bring these myopic people up to speed with the real consequences of interest. Here’s the excerpt from an article written by Simon Denyer which appeared in the 10th May issue of Dawn:

FARMERS’ WOES TAKE SHINE OFF BJP DRIVE

Aanedoddi(India): Like many Indian farmers, Chikkananjappa took a series of loans from private money lenders to pay for the weddings of his three daughters.

But after his rice and mulberry crops failed, he found it increasingly difficult to keep up with interest payments of up to five percent a month.“After the crop failed, he took another loan to set up a small provisions store, but that failed as well,” said his wife Deviramma, clutching a framed photograph of her husband tightly to her chest in their small family home in southern India.

“Money lenders started harassing him, and at three o’ clock in the night he got out of bed, went outside and hanged himself from a tree in the backyard.”

Chikkananjappa was one of nearly 200 farmers who committed suicide in the southern state of Karnataka last year, where the rains failed for a third year in succession.

Farmers’ unions say thousands more have killed themselves across the country in recent years.

This is the classic example of what can go awry in such a system and Islam strives to offset this very problem. Although Islam is for everyone, rich or poor, but it lays emphasis on protecting the poor from all evils and threats; the biggest threat to them are the rich themselves. The only purpose of interest is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. You don’t have to look anywhere else other than the glorified United States of America to gauge the enormity of the problem.

The problem is no one gives a shit. Farmers in India? Karanataka? Where the hell is that? That’s the general attitude. If something is happening in a faraway land, you feel you are immune to it. America thought it was immune to the mess it was creating in the Middle East until it overflowed into its own backyard. Even then the lethargic giant didn’t wake up to the realization that something may just be wrong with its own foreign policy and went about creating more mess. The result is for all to see, especially the recent events. It has become the most humiliated country of modern times, so much so that their state department has postponed the release of this year’s international human rights report for fear of being made the butt of a never-ending array of jokes. Not it matters much. There is hardly any US credibility on human rights issues in the world. It’s just an excuse for “third world bashing” at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and at the General Assembly session in New York. But lets backtrack to the topic at hand.

So the thing is, until something bad has happened to you, you just can’t gauge its effects. Nothing like first hand experience. And my family has been a victim of this evil.

My father took some money( ok, a large amount of money) out of his provident fund. Turns out, he had to pay an exorbitant amount of interest on his own money! Naturally, the interest amount wasn’t going to be added to his provident fund. But things didn’t work out for him, and before we knew it, we were in debt. That marked the beginning of a hard 10-year long financial crisis. We still haven’t recovered completely from it, but we are better off than we were back then. It was really tough on my parents; they were used to pampering and showering us with gifts every now and then, and now they were in a position where they could no longer bring us up in the royal manner they had been accustomed to. Even then, they cushioned us from the effects of the nerve wracking fall they had taken. We continued to be fed and taken care of in the best way they could afford. I was the most affected, a pampered spoilt brat used to having every wish of his granted. I knew if even now I asked my father for something, he would do anything, even take more loan to get it for me, that’s the kind of man he is; you don’t get such fathers anywhere in the world. But our mother kept us up to speed with our financial position to make us realize the predicament we were in. So I had to refrain myself from making any outrageous demands. Adversity teaches you much. And it has been a very generous teacher for me. There’s no doubt in my mind that everything good or bad comes from God. But he has also given us the power of choosing on our own. My experience with the harrowing of effects of interest from up close has furthered renewed my faith in Islam that whatever Islam forbids you from doing is beneficial for you in the long run. I don’t know much about Islamic banking, but I know this much: Malaysia adopted the Islamic model and it is one of the economic powers of the Muslim world. Anyone coming across some good resources online about the Islamic banking please let me know.