Is 'interest' a bad thing?

Question

I hear Islamic law says interest should not be charged in principle.
Is this true?
Whether it is or not, is it a good or bad thing.
Please keep answers simple I am not an economist and won't get too much jargon. Thank you.

Answer 1

Believe it or not, in the middle ages, Chritisian beliefs were the SAME!! That's right. You see in European countries such as France, Hungry-Germany and so forth, there were 4 levels of society. These were God, the King, priests and the local people. Now all money that was raised on farms went through the church and then through the King, because the King was put on the throne by god. Now this is were it gets interesting!!

Farmers and consumers who did other manual work were only allowed so much money. For example if a farm had $100 dollars, but spent $75 to recieve $85 in income, there would be a surplus of $10, which of course was the property of the king and the church.

So this is how taxes were calculated and governed in this time. But why would they do this? Mainly two reasons:

1) The all the lands on earth were given to all people. The people who controlled, the king and the church, read the bible in the way that kept them in power, saying that no one man should control wealth. In other words a basic form of communism in the sense of utter control.

2) Control. They middle ages were called the middle ages because there was no linear advancement of people in society as well as technological and knowledge advancement.

This was of course changed when Martian Luther of Germany took up and created his own way of reading the bible, stating that making a profit was fine. This is when things really changed. Profits were being made and interest was being charged at the grass roots level. People began to create things for sale, the quality and quantity of products increased for competition.

Is interest a good or bad thing? who knows, BUT its implementation within europe created the first world countries we know today!!!!!!!

Answer 2

I believe the religion prohibits charging "excessive" interest rate. It was due to the fact that back in those days, the lenders used to charge exorbitant amount of interest rate, thereby, making it impossible for the borrowers to pay back the principal. Consequently, those borrowers turned into slaves.

I believe people today simply interpret the instructions of the religion w/o fully understanding the underlying reasons for those instructions and try to stay away from either getting interest payments or paying interests.

Banks have come up with innovative terms to get the money of these religious men and call the interest by another name - profit sharing!

If there is such thing as money devaluation/inflation, meaning that you can buy less today than you were able to buy a year ago for the same amount of money, then interest is a good thing. If someone like banks is making money by borrwing money from you and then lending it to someone, then interest is a good thing.

Interest is bad when the credit card companies in the US are charging when the Credit Card companies are charging 19 plus percentage points interest.

Answer 3

Under strict Sharia law it is wrong to receive interest. This is also true of the Christian and Jewish 1st Testament. As with everything in religion it is down to the particular interpretation that you choose to believe in/follow. There are now mortgages and savings accounts available that are designed for those who follow Sharia Law, have a look at this site if thats what you need - www.islamic-finance.com.

In purely economical terms it is good to receive interest and bad to pay interest. By receiving interest from a bank you are merely claiming a small amount of the huge profit they make by having your money.

If in doubt, give it to charity!

Answer 4

Islam has its values. There is not "good" thing or "bad" thing when something has to deal with a whole philosophy system such as Religion. They do not accept that one has to gain strictly by "money", so interest in not charged. It is their Law and it must be accepted and respected. When they have to make money transactions with Christians or other dogmas that differ in principal, than it is a whole matter of discussion.... Have in mind that Islam has strict ethic laws, sometimes not easily understood or accepted by West.

Answer 5

It wouldn't' surprise me. The early Christian Church (which Islamic law evolved from) saw interest as an evil thing.

Early medieval religious leaders thought that the economy was a "zero sum game", which means that someone can only gain if someone else loses. (which is not true)

They didn't think that charging interest created any real wealth (which is also not true) so they saw it as evil and immoral.


So, again, being that much of Islam evolved from early Christianity, it wouldn't surprise me if Islamic law says that.

Answer 6

I'm no expert on religion and interest. My opinion is that interest is a good thing. It's the price of money. It gives people with money reason to lend it to people who need money to expand business, which is utlimately good.

It's no different that paying a doctor for his service. If we didn't pay doctors you may find it difficult to find a doctor to save your life, which isn't a good thing. If there was no interest you might find it tough to get a loan to buy a home when you're 30 years old.

Answer 7

no, never, besides the undeniable fact that it relies upon on what variety of interest.for occasion, blacks do not purely like the way the white trolls throughout this section are attracted to their lifestyle. They submit stupid-*** rude, racist, stereotypical questions approximately all of them DAY. there is like a million,2 hundred,000 plus pages of questions of them, that is not even humorous. pay attention, there is easily not something incorrect approximately being somewhat involved or involved in yet another lifestyle, yet as long as you do not propose to be offensive, like what those racist white trolls be doing. i'm attending to the factor the place i think of they gets a commission by technique of the Y!A group for posting certainly one of those super variety of rattling questions approximately blacks, they submit a lot.

Answer 8

Einstein said it was the most powerful force in the universe! (He might have been being sarcastic - hard to tell with Albert!)

Answer 9

It's good if you're saving. Bad if you're borrowing!