How beautiful Islam is. Prophet Mohammed (Salal la ho alahi wasalam) has completed Islam 1400 years ago and has left Allah’s book(Qur’an) and his Hadiths for our guidance. Allah (Subhan-Wa-Tala) commanded us how to live life in a better manner. If we adhere to the rules which are mentioned in the glorious Qur’an then how beautiful our life would be. Have we imagined it? I guess the answer is NO.
Why? Because we have never understood what Allah (Subhan-Wa-Tala) wanted us to understand. Allah (Subhan-Wa-Tala) distinguished between good and evil act. Among the throttled law, one of the major sins which a Muslim has took it very lightly is “Riba / Usury / Interest” amount.
Allah (Subhan-Wa-Tala) has condemn riba several times in the glorious Qur’an –
- O you, who have believed, fear Allah and give up what remains [due to you] of interest, if you should be believers. And if you do not, then be informed of a war [against you] from Allah and His Messenger. But if you repent, you may have your principal – [thus] you do no wrong, nor are you wronged. [Holy Qur’an: Al-Baqarah :278, 279]
- O you, who have believed, do not consume usury, doubled and multiplied, but fear Allah that you may be successful. [Holy Qur’an: Ali-Imran : 130]
Numerous Ahadith addresses this topic. Few of them are –
- Narrated Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) Prophet (Salal la ho alahi wasalam) said, “On the night (Shab-e-Meraj) when I was taken up to Heaven I came upon people whose bellies were like houses and contained snakes which could be seen from outside their bellies. I asked Jibrael (Alai Salam) who they were and he replied they were people who had practiced usury.” [Al-Tirmidhi Hadith No: 2828]
- Narrated Ali ibn AbuTalib (May Allah be pleased with him) Prophet (Salal la ho alahi wasalam) said, curse those who took usury, those who paid it, those who recorded it, and those who refused to give sadaqah. And he used to prohibit wailing. [Al-Tirmidhi Hadith 2829]
Brothers and sisters in Islam, As we live in non-Islamic country, we often receive the interest amount out of our salary credit or our business deposits. We can calculate it and take that money out of our account (whenever get debited) and giving it to our poor Muslim families who are really in need. The intention should not be getting great rewards of it from Almighty. For that amount, we have not worked hard and may assist poor families for their needs not for us. Looking at the consequences of great sin (riba) I would like you all to look into your bank account and try as hard as possible to remove entire interest amount from it and invest in poor Muslim Ummah’s life. There are plenty of people out there who are suffering from severe deceases/illness and out of them many are unfortunate to get recover from it, due to lack of financial aid. Young brothers and sisters are waiting to get married because their guardians are unable to collect required amount for their marriage, children are begging for food, not able to complete their education, small children are working in garage, restaurants and workshop. It’s really sad to even imagine.
Alhamdulillah at regular time intervals we all are investing our halal money (zakat/sadaqat ) very religiously and everyone knows the importance and reward of it. Similarly if we can think of what kind of punishment we will get due to interest/riba amount then it will be much easier for us to act upon it.
For you, I have mentioned below few steps which will be easy for online ICICI Bank user to calculate how much interest amount they have earned so far. For non-online users you can visit your respective bank and ask for yearly bank statement and accordingly calculate it. And for non-icici bank users you can follow below similar steps in your respective bank account.
Step 1: LOG IN
Log in to icici bank account http://www.icicibank.com/ with your userid and password.
Step 2:
Click on Detailed bank statement option.
Step 3: SELECT DATE RANGE
Enter start and end Date and click on Statement button to save report in excel file.
Step 4: SEARCH INTEREST AMOUNT
Open the generated excel file and search for word “Int.”, it will give you all the instances of interest amount paid to you during that year. Look for the respective Amount column and add up the interest amount earned during that year.
That’s it.
These are pretty simple 4 steps work which will free us from the dirty amount (riba), Insha Allah.
We ask Allah (Subhan-Wa-Tala) to accept our repentance and to help us to do that which He loves and which pleases Him. Aameen.
Jazak allah khair.
Various Q&A about riba are posted on IslamQA
Abu Maryam Enayat's Blog 