To the Moroccan Minister of Endowments: Serve the religion, and do not use it, lest you present falsehood in the image of truth!
News:
The Moroccan Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Al-Tawfiq, has brought the discussion about bank returns and the concept of usury back to the forefront, during his participation in the Islamic Financial Stability Forum, organized by the Bank of Morocco and the Islamic Financial Services Board on Thursday, 07/03/2025, in the capital, Rabat. He stressed that financial dealing with returns on loans is related to "legislation," i.e., contracting and consent that guarantees justice, more than it is related to "worship," indicating that justice requires that necessity not be turned into an opportunity for injustice and unfairness to the borrower, and this is what calls for the intervention of the Emirate to protect money with rules and institutions. (Elaf newspaper)
Comment:
This was not the first statement by the Moroccan Minister of Endowments regarding the permissibility of usury. It was preceded by his modern reading of banking transactions, which he shared last year in a Hassani lesson given before King Muhammad VI, where he criticized "some religious speakers who embarrassed the conscience of Muslims by saying that usury is the interest on any loan, no matter how much," and explained that "most borrowing in this era is for necessity or investment, and the interest paid is related to the price of the term and in return for services," while "the interest decreases as the country's economy grows." He believes that the wisdom of the Holy Qur’an in prohibiting usury came to break with practices that were common in some ancient civilizations, whereby these practices were based on enslaving those unable to repay the debt with doubled returns, which was denounced by some Greek philosophers.
This Minister of Endowments, who covers the truth with falsehood and calls on people to be reassured that ordinary banking transactions are not outside of Islam as long as they are within the framework of contracting and as long as they are not multiple times over, and thus he believes that he is achieving the public interest by renewing religious discourse and removing the gap between "rigid jurisprudential understanding" and the living reality of Muslims, is in fact fighting a legal text that is definitive, fixed in the Book, Sunnah, and consensus, and therefore the prohibition of usury is not subject to interpretation or alteration, and returns, regardless of their amount, fall under usury.
Imam Al-Ghazali says: "As for the interest, it is originally an expression of bringing benefit or warding off harm; and we do not mean by it that; for bringing benefit or warding off harm are the goals of creation; and the righteousness of creation is in achieving their goals, but we mean by interest: preserving the purpose of Sharia" (Al-Mustasfa: 1/217).
All good for people lies in obedience to God Almighty, and thus the interest is achieved, and consent does not make lawful what God has forbidden, and Imam Al-Shatibi has explained that the satisfaction of the contracting parties does not remove the corruption intended by the legal prohibition, but rather the consent is considered from the point of view that it reveals the desire of the two parties and there is no coercion on them, not from the point of view that it is the reason for the legitimacy of the contract. Therefore, the agreed-upon return with the consent of the parties, even if it is small, does not remove the usurious nature from the contract. It is incumbent upon the Minister of Endowments not to tamper with legal rulings and exploit his position in using religion instead of serving it, misleading people and making them believe that the state has taken the spirit of the Sharia and followed its objectives by making things easier for people! In this, Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah says: "So it is fitting for the one who fears God and fears His punishment to beware of making lawful what God has forbidden with all kinds of deceit and tricks, and to know that what he shows of deceit and deception in words and deeds will not save him from God, and to know that God has a day in which secrets will be tested and what is in the hearts will be obtained, there the deceivers will know that they were deceiving themselves, and they were playing with their religion, and they plot only against themselves, but they do not realize" (I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in (3/163) for short).
Our advice to the Minister of Endowments is not to carry people on his back and bear their burdens, and remember the words of God Almighty: ﴿The Day their faces will be turned about in the Fire, they will say, "How we wish we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger." * And they will say, "Our Lord, indeed we obeyed our masters and our great ones, and they led us astray from the [right] way. * Our Lord, give them double the punishment and curse them with a great curse."﴾.
Written for the Central Media Office Radio of Hizb ut Tahrir
M. Durra Al-Bakoush