I attended an interesting event yesterday arranged by the Bristol Interfaith Group. Amjid Ali, Head of HSBC Amanah UK gave a talk on the subject of Home Financing & Banking in Accordance with Shariah.
As with Judaism and Christianity, Islamic scripture proposes a prohibition on charging interest, which has been enforced with varying degrees of enthusiasm throughout history. The English term Interest is translatable as the Arabic word "Riba", which presumably has the same Semitic root as the Hebrew word "Ribbit".
HSBC Amanah and other Islamic Banking institutions offer an alternative to interest-bearing financial structures for conducting transactions such as buying a house. The whole subject is much more nuanced than I had appreciated. For example. the proscription on Interest in all three major religions applies to both receipt and payment. And Islamic thought permits interest where the currency is physical (food, metals, bullion); Riba is specifically associated with paper currency. Thus HSBC also offer a Shariah-compliant current account which pays zero interest on deposits (with some ring fencing of funds, so not quite the gift to the bankers it sounds like).
These products serve a useful purpose for people who have a need for credit but are faced with doctrinal obstacles. What interests me (pardon the pun) is why credit gets such a bad rap. Amjid Ali's interpretation of the Islamic scholarly position is that interest is deemed to be a tool for keeping wealth in the hands of the wealthy. Economics is not my specialist subject, but my gut reaction is that this is a complete reversal of reality - access to personal credit has to be one of the best indicators of a society's development and wealth.
I've heard it said that one should never enter a battle of wits with a banker, as one will invariably be outgunned. Considering that Murabahah and it's medieval Christian equivalent, the Contractum Trinius, are methods for overcoming prohibitions on certain classes of financial transaction as revealed by God, it hardly seems surprising that mere temporal laws and tax codes are quickly overcome.
(Techie Interlude)
I'm a subscriber to Randy Cassingham's This is True newsletter. This week's edition included information on some great add-ons for the Firefox browser.
ColorZilla: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/271/
SearchStatus: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/321/
Mouse Gestures: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/39/
Auto Copy: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/383/
Also - I'm a huge fan of WinDirStat - a Disk space visualisation tool. Shame about the name, but otherwise a fantastic bit of software. I'm putting this note in my blog so that I can remember where to download it next time I change laptop.
