By Abdullahi Jamaa
With competitive markets and ever-changing dynamics of capital economy, riba (usury) changes its ugly face so often. Usurious transactions that amount to brazen exploitation of people and businesses is indisputably illegal in Islam.
Any form of excess earnings on credit facilities is categorised as riba.The changing faces of usury and the issuance of new arrangements of ambiguous financial facilities with predetermined returns continue to put Muslim communities into perpetual curiosity.
Riba is an Arabic word that means increase, addition or growth. Technically, it refers to the extra amount of money that one earns from lending. It is the difference that a borrower pays in excess and the lender earns in return.
Modern day riba involves the price of a rent paid on money in exchange of its use. In contemporary banking, the entry of exploitative interest has turned money into a commodity of trade.
Safaricom’s new overdraft facility widely known as ‘ Fuliza’ perfectly fits into the place of Riba thus becoming an affront to acceptable financial transactions within the fundamental tenets of Islam as enshrined in the Glorious Quran and the pristine tradition of our beloved Prophet (SAW).
Fuliza is an overdraft facility on your MPESA wallet where you’ll be able to purchase something via MPESA even if you have insufficient funds. Launched on January 5, this facility attracts a fee of 1.083 percent of the value of the credit and an additional administrative fee of up to Sh30 is charged for each day that the loan remains unpaid.
Fuliza can be categorized under a type of Riba that in Islamic parlance is known as Riba An-nasiya. This type of usury results from predetermined interest which a lender receives over and above the principal amount. It appears to be the most common form that is spread today in the world, where interest is charged on credits.
Imam Al-Ghazali said trading in money for earning some interest makes money an end object like a market commodity. “Engaging money in that way is an oppression” He said .
And so we very well know the punishment that comes with engaging in Riba. Consuming riba is one of the seven destructive sins that share almost or equal punishment with shirk (associating partners with Allah), magic, killing an innocent person, eating the property of an orphan, running away from the battlefield and accusing chaste women.
Those who deal in usury and illegally acquire people’s money, using various evil methods and wicked avenues are trading unlawfully as they await the torment of hell fire.
Some of the companions of the prophet (SAW) have cursed those who indulge in riba, including whoever pays it, its writers and its witnesses. It is such a grave sin that will undoubtedly land a person in the lowest suctions of hellfire.
Ibn Majah recorded that Abu Huraira (RA) said that the prophet (SAW) said, “Riba is seventy types, the least of which is equal to one having sexual intercourse with his mother.”
And on the day resurrection, the person who engages in riba will wake up from his grave like a person afflicted by insanity or possessed by a demon. They will appear sickly with bodily seizures and dark faces.
That is why a person who consumes riba will resemble a majnoon (madman). Such a person cannot think rationally and will only work to spread mischief and injustices on earth.
“Those who consume interest cannot stand [on the Day of Resurrection] except as one stands who is being beaten by Satan into insanity. That is because they say, “Trade is [just] like interest.” But Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest. So whoever has received an admonition from his Lord and desists may have what is past, and his affair rests with Allah . But whoever returns to [dealing in interest or usury] – those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein” (Quran 2.275)
Their bodies will also face an endless round of torments and tortures in Hayatul-al-Barzakh as the Prophet (SAW) testified. And here on earth, Allah states that He destroys riba, either by depriving wealth from those who use it, or by removing the blessings from their money.
For more about this topic read the article “The Fitnah of Riba”
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