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Moving Beyond Islamic Banking by Reframing Discourses

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Moving Beyond Islamic Banking by Reframing Discourses JUST MONEY AND INTEREST: MOVING BEYOND ISLAMIC BANKING BY REFRAMING DISCOURSES by JIBRIL LATIF A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (80,000 words) Theology and Religion: Islamic Studies College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham May 2015 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Enlightenment discourse advanced an idiosyncratic cognitive framework and epistemology that rationalized the overturning of usury laws. Under capitalism, money innately changed as banks gained the institutional right to create credit and lend it into existence at interest. The implicit ideologies of this discourse instantiated a reframing of traditional conceptions about money and interest worldwide. In contradistinction, Islam prohibits riba, a term approximated as usury/interest, presenting ethical problems to banking practice. This conflict has yielded Islamic banking and finance (IBF), bolstered by a small cadre of Shariah scholars, even though it continues to fail in its stated social justice imperatives. IBF evidently charges what is commensurate to interest while declaring it does not, promoting its products as ‘Shariah compliant’ – a term producing different meanings to different interpreters. This study adopts an Islamic maqasid methodology and analyzes discourses in reframing how such an industry emerged, how its practice departed from its claims, how it sustains itself, and asks why Muslims have not moved beyond it towards alternatives that procure greater possibilities for social and environmental justice. It reexamines discourses connected to the historical and contextual reframing of money, usury, interest and riba, and isolates the associated semantic obfuscations that power has influenced. DEDICATION ﷽ I would like to dedicate this work to all of those who have helped me along my path. To them I express my gratitude. This pertains to my teachers, to my loving parents who did an exceptional job in raising us, and to my dear wife. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the ones laboring to preserve and articulate an understanding of our tradition based on faithfulness, which increasingly becomes more difficult. I am especially indebted to Sh. Hamza Yusuf and Im. Zaid Shakir, sincere seekers and conduits of knowledge that have so evidently influenced our generation by setting a new standard in classical scholarship in the West. I would also like to thank Dr. Tariq Ramadan for articulating a framework that non-specialists are able to use as a platform for discussion. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………1 1.1.1 Background………………………………………………………………………………..1 1.1.2 Statement of the Problem………………………………………………………………...30 1.1.3 Hypothesis………………………………………………………………………………..31 1.1.4 Political Context of the Study……………………………………………………………32 1.1.5 Rationale…………………………………………………………………………………36 1.1.6 Methodology, Limitations and Delimitations……………………………………………41 1.1.7 Motivations………………………………………………………………………………47 1.1.8 Scope……………………………………………………………………………………. 49 1.1.9 Sources………………………………………………………………………………….. 50 1.1.10 Objectives………………………………………………………………………………. 51 CHAPTER 2: SHIFTING HISTORICAL PERCEPTIONS OF USURY IN THE WEST……...53 2.0.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...53 Part 1: Injustices Associated with Usury………………………………………………………...53 2.1.0 Linking Usury to Plunder………………………………………………………………….53 2.1.1 Pertinent Background Information Related to Usury……………………………………...54 2.1.2 Usury Appears in Babylon…………………………………………………………………56 2.1.3 Government Interventionism: Jubilee……………………………………………………...57 2.1.4 Usury and the Israelites: The Hapiru as Hebrews………………………………………….59 2.1.5 The Holiness Code in the Bible……………………………………………………………60 2.1.6 Employing Usury as a Technique in Warfare……………………………………………...61 2.1.7 Usury in the Classics and the Medieval World…………………………………………….63 2.1.8 Christian Mores Battle Against Usury……………………………………………………..64 2.1.9 The Scholastics Discuss Usury and Just Compensation…………………………………...66 2.1.10 The Islamic Concept of Rizq Loses Influence in Europe…………………………………69 2.1.11 The Rationale in Arguing for Usury: Time Value of Money…………………………….70 2.1.12 The Protestant Reformation: A Paradigm Shift in Tolerating Interest…………………...72 2.1.13 Calvinism and Usury……………………………………………………………………..73 2.1.14 The Protestant Work Ethic and Capitalism………………………………………………75 Part 2: A Precursor to Capitalism: The Birth of Banking………………………………………..77 2.2.1 The Pre-Capitalist Sphere of Exchange and its Credit System of Trust…………………...77 2.2.2 Goldsmiths Monopolize the Money Supply……………………………………………….78 2.2.3 The Moral Hazards Created by Banking…………………………………………………..81 Part 3: The Emergence of Capitalism……………………………………………………………85 2.3.1 Capitalism Emerges in Holland: The Origins of Institutionalized Usury…………………86 2.3.2 Limited Liability Corporations as Institutional Platforms for Power……………………...88 2.3.3 Reframing the Discourse of Usury in the English Milieu of the 16th - 18th Centuries…….90 2.3.4 Isaac Newton, Alchemy and the Scientific Revolution……………………………………91 2.3.5 Newtonian Framing of the Discourse on Interest………………………………………….93 2.3.6 Usury Formally Returns in England’s ‘Glorious Revolution’……………………………..95 2.3.7 The Bank of England and the Capitalist State……………………………………………..99 2.3.8 Usury as a Tax on the Money Supply…………………………………………………….100 2.3.9 Central Banking and Political Capture…………………………………………………...102 2.3.10 Adam Smith’s Impact on the Discourse about Interest…………………………………104 2.3.11 Smith’s Lasting Imprint on Economic Discourse……………………………………….106 2.3.12 Evolutionary Discourse Merges with Economic Thought………………………………109 2.3.13 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………....112 CHAPTER 3: CONSIDERING THE OBSTACLES OF UTILIZING ISLAMIC ETHICS…...115 Part 1: Contextualizing Islamic Ethics……………………………………………………….....115 3.1.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….115 3.1.2 Shariah: Context, Sources and Immutabilities……………………………………………115 3.1.3 The Islamic Legal Tradition and the Human Task of Interpretation……………………..118 3.1.4 Human Fallibility and Attaining Certainty……………………………………………….120 3.1.5 The Prophetic Example in Ethics…………………………………………………………121 3.1.6 Prioritizing the Higher Objectives: The Maqasid Al Shariah…………………………….123 3.1.7 Arriving Upon a Methodology in Islamic Ethics…………………………………………127 3.1.8 Extending and Expanding on the Maqasid Methodology………………………………...129 3.1.9 Further Methodological Expansion………………………………………………………133 Part 2: Contextual Considerations………………………………………………………….......135 3.2.1 Contextualizing the Obstacles of an Islamic Alternative…………………………………135 3.2.2 Economic Discourse Develops into a ‘Scientific’ Discipline…………………………….135 3.2.3 Greed as a Prime Motivator………………………………………………………………138 3.2.4 The Incommensurable Relationship between Progress and Ethics………………………138 Part 3: The Idiosyncratic Nature of Knowledge and Discourse in the Western Episteme……..140 3.3.1 Limiting the Scope of Examining Idiosyncrasy………………………………………….140 3.3.2 Western Civilization as Sacred Myth…………………………………………………….141 3.3.3 Consequences of Nihilism………………………………………………………………..144 3.3.4 Eurocentric Epistemic Preference Presented as ‘Global Truth’………………………….144 3.3.5 Western Literature and Global Literature………………………………………………...145 3.3.6 Applying Islamic Ethics in an Islamophobic Milieu……………………………………..147 3.3.7 Remnants of Orientalism: Considerations and Suitable Disciplines……………………..150 3.3.8 Cultural Baggage of ‘The Secular’……………………………………………………….152 CHAPTER 4: EXPANDING MARKET AXIOMS AND FRAMING JUSTICE……………..157 4.0.1 Introduction to Islamic Justice……………………………………………………………157 Part 1: Exchange Parameters Informed by an Islamic Ethos…………………………………...160 4.1.1 The Highest Objective in Exchange: Mutual Consent……………………………………160 4.1.2 The Market of Medina: Principles and Legal Limitations………………………………..162 4.1.3 Legal Framework and Economic Freedom……………………………………………….163 4.1.4 The Scope of Governmental Intervention………………………………………………...165 4.1.5 Extending Higher Objectives into Developing Axioms.…………………………………166 4.1.6 A Discussion on Riba as an Axiomatic Prohibition………………………………………168 4.1.7 The Background on Riba…………………………………………………………………169 4.1.8 The Prohibition of Riba in the Quran: First Revelation…………………………………..170 4.1.9 Second Revelation………………………………………………………………………..170 4.1.10 Third Revelation………………………………………………………………………...171 4.1.11 Fourth Revelation……………………………………………………………………….171 4.1.12 Riba in the Hadith……………………………………………………………………….172 4.1.13 Different Aspects of Riba in Commentary……………………………………………...175 Part 2: Arriving at an Understanding of Just Money…………………………………………...177 4.2.1 A Clarification of Terms………………………………………………………………….177 4.2.2 The Competing Versions of Money………………………………………………………178 4.2.3 The Origin of Money Systems……………………………………………………………180 4.2.4 The Inaccurate Claim that Money Evolved from Barter…………………………………181 4.2.5 A Demarcation of Money, Wealth and Currency in Human Networks…………………..183 4.2.6 Money in Islam: Commodity
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