Spring Break
Islamic finance may be right in time of recession
Bryan Murphy
Issue date: 4/2/09 Section: Commentary
As the leaders of the world's 20 most prominent capitalist countries prepare to meet for the 2009 G-20 Leader's on Financial Markets and the World Economy this very day, now is the perfect time to reappraise the purported value of the world's ailing economic system through the lens provided us by the ideals of the Prophet Mohammed.
It is interesting to consider the possibility that, if the world's economy had followed the financial practices mandated by Islam's Sharia law, the world may have neatly sidestepped all of the evils that have reigned as a result of the most recent global recession.
While it is well and good to bemoan tax increases and cast aspersions on the financial industry, this financial catastrophe has at its epicenter the egoism of New York City and Fairfield County. And, similarly, the governments of New York and Connecticut - and New York City, Westchester, Greenwich, Stamford and Westport - were only too happy to accept the tax returns of these financiers, and only too ready to loosen restrictions that might have impinged their (taxable) profits.
But we all had our hands on the wheel of the vehicle of this collapse, and it was a gluttonous addiction to monetary gambling in all forms of credit, derivatives, interest rates and other blasphemous tools of usury and fiscal illusion. Coincidentally, Sharia law's most stringent bans are reserved for exactly such duplicitous "financial innovations." If traders and brokers had only heeded the words of the Qu'ran, much of the suffering provoked by the "subprime" meltdown might have been avoided.
Islamic financial law considers dividing interest on mortgage payments into "prime" and "subprime," as if there were various degrees of evil in usury, to be as foolish as dividing blashpemy into "prime" and "subprime" levels - as if God's vengeance may be any less swift for a "Moody's AAA" blasphemer. Allah's words consider all forms of interest and intangible financial gambling, such as credit-derivative swaps, to be "riba." And the Qur'an is perfectly clear in stating that "those who charge riba are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence ... those who persist in riba, they incur Hell, wherein they abide forever ... If the debtor is unable to pay, wait for a better time. If you give up the loan as charity, it would be better for you, if you only knew."
It is interesting to consider the possibility that, if the world's economy had followed the financial practices mandated by Islam's Sharia law, the world may have neatly sidestepped all of the evils that have reigned as a result of the most recent global recession.
While it is well and good to bemoan tax increases and cast aspersions on the financial industry, this financial catastrophe has at its epicenter the egoism of New York City and Fairfield County. And, similarly, the governments of New York and Connecticut - and New York City, Westchester, Greenwich, Stamford and Westport - were only too happy to accept the tax returns of these financiers, and only too ready to loosen restrictions that might have impinged their (taxable) profits.
But we all had our hands on the wheel of the vehicle of this collapse, and it was a gluttonous addiction to monetary gambling in all forms of credit, derivatives, interest rates and other blasphemous tools of usury and fiscal illusion. Coincidentally, Sharia law's most stringent bans are reserved for exactly such duplicitous "financial innovations." If traders and brokers had only heeded the words of the Qu'ran, much of the suffering provoked by the "subprime" meltdown might have been avoided.
Islamic financial law considers dividing interest on mortgage payments into "prime" and "subprime," as if there were various degrees of evil in usury, to be as foolish as dividing blashpemy into "prime" and "subprime" levels - as if God's vengeance may be any less swift for a "Moody's AAA" blasphemer. Allah's words consider all forms of interest and intangible financial gambling, such as credit-derivative swaps, to be "riba." And the Qur'an is perfectly clear in stating that "those who charge riba are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence ... those who persist in riba, they incur Hell, wherein they abide forever ... If the debtor is unable to pay, wait for a better time. If you give up the loan as charity, it would be better for you, if you only knew."
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Doug
posted 4/02/09 @ 5:12 PM EST
First, muhammed was a gifted psychopath--not a prophet. Thanks to the 1st Amednment I'm allowed to make that assertion.
Next, according to the dictates of islam, there can be no cafeteria-style implemntation of the barbarity known as sharia; it's all or nothing. (Continued…)
larry barr
posted 4/03/09 @ 1:48 PM EST
I love the sound of a hammer hitting the nail squarely on its head.
johniee rockets
posted 4/03/09 @ 2:11 PM EST
Interesting article and perspective. Three years ago, if you started talking about Iqtisad ('equilibrium' or 'economics' in Arabic, sometimes loosely translated in economics parlance as 'socialism') and Sharia law interpretations in economics, you would have been called an Islamic fundamentalist. (Continued…)
Ben
posted 6/07/09 @ 4:31 AM EST
YEs we could have avoided the current economic contraction. But we would have also avoided all of the economic progress since the BC's. Then we would all be living like the [expletive removed by administrator] that is the Taliban run mid east. (Continued…)
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