03-02-2006, 12:43 AM
As salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullah all....
This reply is a bit late but i feel compelled to put in my two cents...,.
I am an accountant by profession... and am the accountant for a financial institution in my country that specialises in alternative islamic financing.. I have come to see two things....
firstly: Allah has WAGED WAR on those who have consumed riba.. can you imagine that.... being waged war upon BY ALLAH.... subhanallah.... the issue of riba is a VERY SERIOUS ONE...
secondly: Islamic financing is one of the major things that is rocking the business world... many international banks have seen it fit to venture into islamic financing for instance HSBC (an international bank) has started a company called HSBC Amanah and The infamous Barkleys bank has an islamic section..... furthermore...these banks have shariah boards with some of the world's highest qualified scholars of islamic finance. like Maulana Taqi Usmani from Pakistan or Sheikh Yusuf Talal de lorenzo...
The student of The sheikh ul islam ibn taymiyyah... sheikh abdullah ibn abdul wahhab... a man who is very contentios in the muslim world have mentioned three qualities of in his book "the four principles of shirk" one of which is "when he is tested, is patient" in spite of the contentions of his teachings.... sabr... is mentioned in the quran...
personally i have been tested for a major part of my life..... tested with poverty that many have never seen... subhanallah.... my point is... no matter how far in the depths of poverty or trial that you have reached... we must ask ourself the question....
Am i willing to wage war on allah if i take this loan?
if the answer is affirmative (which i hope it is no) then go right ahead... and may allah forgive your sins and blasphemy
if the answer is no... then have sabr and make dua may allah take you out of this sitauation....
of course necessity (and by that i mean life and death) puts a different twist on things
anyways... there are soooooo much halaal alternatives now... i feel riba is not the answer... we should not indulge in this for any reason....
Since i have been working here i have seen ppl who have gotten themselves into riba and allah have brought them down to nothing,.. there is this one man who came in 2 weeks ago and started SCREAMING so loud that our alarms tripped off.... he was frustrated... He got rich of riba...and when we warned him he denied us...now he is poor and his wife and in laws are ill... VERY ILL..... there are more stories like that...
bottom line ppl.... there are many alternatives out there... islamic alternatives..... affordability should not be a question because these things are paid by installments and these installments are tailored to fit your spending.... so that;s no excuse.....
and furthermore... there is nothing like a "reasonable rate of interest"
that's like saying 'a resonable war against allah'
brothers and sisters let us not get into these things..... astaghfirullah
stay away....
it is haraam
assalaamualaikum wa rahmatullah
