(بيع ) / ( الربا )

PART – I ( بيع) (الربا )

To understand Islamic economics you must go into the internal meanings of two words used in Quran and then look for all the different manifestations of these two in the external reality.

These two words are in contrast to each other. One is BAI ( بيع ) and other is RIBA ( الربا)

BAI (بيع ) stands for separation, to slip off and get separated from slowly. When anything separates from one source it attaches to other. This is like if one room is bright other is dark or if one room is full other is empty. Thus it stands for trade where one item goes from one to another. Inside you there is a soul which operates on this principle. If one soul has something it transfers that thing to other soul and in this process it separates itself from that item and is cleansed. The other soul attaches itself to that item immediately. So trade is transfer of an item from one to another. You can transfer only that what you have.

What if one soul holds back an item and does not separate itself immediately. The other soul remain tied up until the transfer is complete.

If one soul control other soul by this incomplete transfer, it becomes the controller of other soul. It becomes lord or RABB of other soul, and this is RIBA (الربا ) which the soul earns by controlling other soul. Note that this control can be between two persons, between bank/ companies and people, between institutions and people and between government and people. All kind of control over people and their functions in trade is liable to make you RABB and this is a grave sin because RABB of all people is ALLAH only.

Now see this verse

فَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلُوا فَأْذَنُوا بِحَرْبٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ

(If you don’t stop doing ( becoming RABB) then you have a war with Allah and rasool)

It is the soul which tried to become the RABB by taking RIBA which will have to fight this war with Allah.

This type of trade is bilateral i.e. other soul is chained and subdued either through compulsion, willingly or by ignorance but the soul becoming the RABB is main defaulter while other one is also party to it.

Because people who deny Allah i.e. kafir do not understand or acknowledge this internal meaning they do not differentiate between BAI and RIBA and say :

   قَالُوا إِنَّمَا الْبَيْعُ مِثْلُ الرِّبَا

(“Trade is like usury,” )

But believers should be firm and say :

وَأَحَلَّ اللَّهُ الْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ الرِّبَا

(Allah hath permitted trade and forbidden usury)