İslâm’daki Faiz Yasağının Temeli Olarak Câhiliye Ribâsı Kavramı

Ali Rıza Gül

Makale detayları

İslâm’daki Faiz Yasağının Temeli Olarak Câhiliye Ribâsı Kavramı

Yazarlar:

Ali Rıza Gül

Ana Başlıklar:

Din

Dergi:

Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi 2017 Vol.21 Issue 1, pp.701-748

Belge Tipi:

Makale

Yayın Tarihi:

6/2017

Belge Dili:

Türkçe

Document ID (Org No.):

2000918665

Anahtar kelimeler:

Özet:

 
















The usury (ribā) known
and applied during the jāhiliyya period (the pre-Islāmic period in Arabia)
constitutes the basis of the interest ban in Islām. According to the majority
of the commentators lived in the early period, the forbidden thing in the
Qur'an is the jāhiliyya usury. The surplus that is stipulated in favor of one
of the contracting parties in exchanging the same kind of goods with each other
is defined as ribā in the hadith and it is also based on the reasoning that is
observed when this ribā is banned. Likewise, the basis for the prohibition of
bad or incorrect types of shopping and illegitimate ways of gain by the Prophet
lies in the prohibition of the jāhiliyya ribā. Moreover, the meaning that Islāmic
scholars attached to this ribā has a great influence on the form and
clarification of their views on interest. In this article, we are handling such
an important issue. Our primary goal is to determine the nature of this ribā by
referring to the main sources and to identify its features and elements. We
hope that the results we achieve will provide a fundamental contribution to the
intellectual efforts of seeking solutions to the current interest problem in
terms of Islām. 

Interest is an illegitimate treatment not based on
reasonable and justified grounds and is an immoral gain. Because of this, it is
forbidden in all the Semitic religions, criticized by the Ancient Greek
Philosophers and seen as an inhuman treatment by the everyone who has mercy and
conscience. However, understanding of interest had changed more or less
gathering from one society to another and from one ages to another. The
Jāhiliyya Arabs also have an understanding of interest that is formally universal,
but also has a few local features. They were expressing this with the word of
ribā (الربا) which
means all three meanings of interest, interest operation and interest goods. In
Arabic, this word and their derivatives generally mean the increase, the surplus,
the proliferation of something in whatever form and direction. If this word is
used specifically for goods and financial transactions, it means increasing
through interest. The form of if‘āl for this word means to raise, to take /
give interest or usury, to increase amount through interest, to increase
something, to eat interest, to infect interest or usury, to get more than you
give.

It is known that interest is very common among the
Jāhiliyya Arabs. The Prophet Muhammad has said in a sermon that he had made in
the Farewell Pilgrimage in the tenth Hijri year: “The ribā of Jāhiliyya society
has been abolished. The first interest I have abolished is our interest, that
is, the ribā of Abbas b. Abdulmuttalib; it is now all abolished.” However, no
information has been narrated from the Prophet and his Companions that explains
the phrase of jāhiliyya ribā in this and similar hadiths. The first statements
on this subject belong to the Successors. We can divide the narrations from
them into four groups. In the first type of these narrations, an excess that a
person who makes credit sale gets it from his customer when he can’t pay his
overdue debts in addition to the main goods for a new term is called the ribā.
The word of sale is replaced by the concept of debt (الديْن) in the second type of these narrations, the term of loan (القَرْض) in the
third type of them and the word of right (الحقّ) in the fourth type of them. It is understood from analysis of
narrations that the ribā contract in the Jāhiliyya period can be made
synchronously with the loan contract in lending and borrowing transactions,
whereas it is made during extending payment time of unpaid debts on time in
another debt contracts.

These narratives constitute a strong data field for
determining the scope of jāhiliyya ribā. From these narratives we can determine
the elements and characteristics of the ribā before Islām. As far as we know
from these narratives, the parties of ribā contract in Jāhiliyya Period are
real persons, the contract on which it is based is most often debt contract;
ribā contract is made as a result of debt, becomes valid with the wills and
acceptances of the parties and includes the condition of debtor’s payment more
than the capital sums; the goods of ribā contract is rightful goods, the amount
paid as a surplus corresponds to the expiry in loan and to the postponement in
other debt contracts. Since there is no formal State system in the pre-Islāmic
period, ribā has followed a rather uncontrolled, unstable, unbalanced, often
high-rate and cruel process. Because of these features, the jāhiliyya ribā is
formally similar to the contemporary interest, but it resembles usurer’s
interest in terms of its implementation, operation and functions more than
this.

Islāmic scholars describe the jāhiliyya ribā from
different perspectives. For example, Tahāwī describes it as “postponement [of
payment] of current debt for the increase of the goods [given as debt]”. Abū
Bakr al-Jassās describes it as “it is known that the jāhiliyya ribā has
happened [in the end of] termed loan for a stipulated surplus and this surplus
has corresponded to term”. We can say in the light of the information we have
arrived that ribā is the real surplus that a person stipulated it in addition
to his principal when he lend hıs goods to another person or delayed payment of
a commodity that is his right and in someone else’s debit or determined the new
term for his unpaid debt, and than took it.

The ribā has been forbidden in the Qur’an in such a
way as to leave no room for doubt. But it is argued that the concept of ribā in
the verses whether means only the jāhiliyya ribā, or includes all kind of ribā
that is also involves the other meanings added to it afterwards. The thing that
takes place at the basis of the discussion is what function of the article of
the concept of ribā (الـربا) in the
Qur’an has. The majority of the commentators on the Qur’an claim that this
article has the function of the meaning of the genus (الجنسية), and therefore the ribā in the related verses covers all kinds
of interest everywhere and at all the times. But it is also a fact that there
is no known any interest other than the jāhiliyya ribā in the Arab society
while these verses are being revealed. In that case, it is a stronger
possibility that this article has a function of pointing to a meaning that has
been known for a long time (العهدية). Some
commentators, taking this situation into account, said that the word of ribā in
the verses means the jāhiliyya ribā. Especially, most of the first term commentators
and of the commentators who have lived in the last a few decades have this
opinion.

However, we have to admit that the meanings
added to the ribā afterwards by the Sunnah of the Prophet, and of the Islāmic
scholars are also not completely irrelevant to the Qur’an. Yet, the way of
establishing this relationship is not to include any kind of interest in the
scope of the jāhiliyya ribā. In our opinion, there are two ways to establish
this relationship. The first thing that needs to be done is to identify
treatments that similar to the jāhiliyya ribā in terms of their shapes,
purposes, functions, features, elements and results and to evaluate them within
the scope of the ribā. What needs to be done after that is to determine the
ways that cause the ribā forbidden in the Qur’an as the Prophet did when he ban
the excess usury (ربا الفضل) and
to forbid them as addendum to the ribā under preventive measures. Despite the
fact that this is the main point of departure, the scope of the concept of ribā
may differ in accordance with the method be followed in details and the current
place and time. This will give the concept of ribā that is essentially static a
dynamic structure that is constantly updatable at all times.    

.

Makale detayları

İslâm’daki Faiz Yasağının Temeli Olarak Câhiliye Ribâsı Kavramı

Yazarlar:

Ali Rıza Gül

Ana Başlıklar:

Din

Dergi:

Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi 2017 Vol.21 Issue 1, pp.701-748

Belge Tipi:

Makale

Yayın Tarihi:

6/2017

Belge Dili:

Türkçe

Document ID (Org No.):

2000918665

Alışveriş

Gayrimeşru Kazanç

Borç

Ödünç

Faiz

Câhiliye Ribâsı

Sayı

Makale detayları

İslâm’daki Faiz Yasağının Temeli Olarak Câhiliye Ribâsı Kavramı

Yazarlar: Ali Rıza Gül

Ana Başlıklar: Din

Dergi: Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi 2017 Vol.21 Issue 1, pp.701-748

Belge Tipi: Makale

Yayın Tarihi: 6/2017

Belge Dili: Türkçe

Document ID (Org No.): 2000918665

Alışveriş

Gayrimeşru Kazanç

Borç

Ödünç

Faiz

Câhiliye Ribâsı

Sayı

Yazarlar:

Ali Rıza Gül

Ana Başlıklar:

Din

Dergi:

Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi 2017 Vol.21 Issue 1, pp.701-748

Belge Tipi:

Makale

Yayın Tarihi:

6/2017

Belge Dili:

Türkçe

Document ID (Org No.):

2000918665