Earthly Punishment for the Violation of the Prohibition of Interest in Islam
Abstract
Interest has been in human beings’ daily economic life since ancient times. Receiving interest was mostly considered evil and the source of many social and economic problems. Therefore, interest was either entirely prohibited or allowed at rates under defined limits in many societies. The interest-based transactions were attempted to regulate by using financial, moral, religious, and legal instruments. Besides others, the spiritual means were considerably harsh. Receiving interest was considered a sin in most of the prevalent religions. Among these, the afterlife sanctions defined for the offenders against the prohibition of interest are the most severe in Islam. This paper aims to evaluate the legal sanctions for not respecting the prohibition of interest-based transactions. Since Islam takes an explicit stance against interest, the earthly punishment practices in Muslim societies for violating the prohibition of interest were studied. It is observed that the implemented weak earthly sanctions are inconsistent with the severe afterlife punishments in Islam.
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