Tag Archives: Riba

Debt Elimination

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We’ve all heard time and again that interest and riba are categorically haraam in Islam. Maddeningly though, we often don’t hear a solution to the problem. Everybody knows these things are haraam but practical advice on how to avoid them is very hard to come by. This blog post answers a part of the question; it offers suggestions on eliminating interest-bearing debt quickly.

Pre-Requisites

1. Ask Allah to Forgive You: If you made the mistake of getting into riba (interest) debts, for whatever reason, repent and do your best to get out of it. I didn’t know better myself, and even when I found the ruling out on interest, I justified it to myself, which was wrong (college education). Stop immediately and reverse course on this.  Ask to be forgiven and formulate a new plan of action to deal with this situation.  Take your time with college and life in general – don’t let society force its ridiculous standards on you.

2. Ask Allah to Help You: We underestimate this, but remember that if you try to come closer to Allah, Allah will come closer to you faster, as was mentioned in a hadeeth qudsi. I’ll explain later how this very principle caused my wife and I to pay off all our college debts ($35,000 from me, about $8000 from her) and other lingering debts in 2 months, alhamdulillaah.

3. Financial Discipline: If you don’t have control over yourself, this system will never work. If you can’t control compulsive shopping or spending, no system will work for you. Period. If you have control issues, see a therapist, psychologist / psychiatrist, or a personal coach to help out.

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The big factor here is the DD – the bigger it is, the faster your debt gets destroyed.  I placed a modest $200, but honestly, most people living on their own can go a couple of hundred higher and make this happen much faster, and people who are living with their families can create a massive DD of about $900 – $1000 or more and can out can knock debts out very quickly.  Given the state of the economy, although I don’t normally recommend it, if you can live with your folks and work a full-time professional job, then stay with them til all debts are gone.

Read the entire post here.

Islamic Economic SYSTEM as an alternative

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The Islamic Revival blog has a transcript of a very lucid speech going over the basics of the economic system prescribed by the Qur’an and Sunnah. The speaker briefly goes over the key principles behind the Islamic system and translates them into the practices of today.

It is important to show Islamic economics as much more then Islamic finance and Banking. What is known as Islamic banking and Islamic finance is about individuals or groups attempting to generate profits in the current system without breaking the shariah rules such as the prohibition of Riba. However today I’m going to focus on the Islamic economic system as a whole which is much wider than this and is the true alternative to the Capitalist system.

Although no Islamic state exists today, we have the economic system of Islam derived from the Quran and the Sunnah and over a thousand years of history of its implementation. Based upon this we must initiate thinking amongst the ‘left’ and the right’ and to demonstrate to them how Islam is not just a religion like the others but is a comprehensive ideology able to deal with the current crisis’s that humanity is faced with.

Read the entire speech here.