The Issue of Haram and Halal by Nisaar Y. Nadiadwala

Surah Tahrim means the Surah on Prohibition ( By Shariah).

Credit Card (Photo credit: 401K)

It begins with an important clause on Prohibition:

“O Prophet ! Why do you hold to be forbidden that Allah has made lawful to you. …!”

What a command! Does anybody has any right to transform a halal into haram if Allah has not given that licence to his own Prophet (pbuh) who was sent with His last constitution? Nobody. But what if some one meddles and issues rulings that violate the Shariah?

  One of the way of lying is to cloth the truth with falsehood and confuse people, and that too in spite of knowing.

For example  you misplace your mobile and ask me if I have seen your mobile. I know where you have placed it. I will not speak a direct lie but I will conceal the truth and tell you something that will not lead you to your mobile. This is a form of lie.  Unfortunately some of so called scholars are into this.

 How many of my readers know that credit card is haram. I don’t know how it works in Saudi and other Gulf countries but in the Western world as well as in the  subcontinent of India it really leads to ribaa i.e. Interest.

For example if you take a credit card and sign an agreement : If I am unable to pay the money in time I agree to  pay ___ % Interest. So you have agreed to pay Interest. Even if you pay the money in time and never have to pay interest yet the agreement has led you to sin.

” How come?” Argued one of my friend. I explained, ” Look if you take a credit card and the clause says that if you delay payment  you will have drink alcohol or eat pork. Will you agree to take that credit card ?”

“Of course not! Never would I agree to buy such product or service which will put such condition” he said. “But why do you fear?” I asked,” Are you not confident that you will never delay the payment?”

“Even if I am confident, yet I would not agree to get involved in any Haram transaction…”,he declared.

Do you know that Interest is considered to be a bigger sin than alcohol and pork?

Allah says ,”Take a notice of war with Allah and His messenger… to the ones who get involved in interest.”

Does Allah such thing about alcohol and pork, though both are grevious sins.

Version of an image of a credit card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 You will hardly come across any Muslim locality that has alcohol bars or pork selling shops. But we find very few Muslims who are very adamantly against interest the way they are against alcohol and pork. Why is it so?

The reason is simple : Right from our childhood we are made to hate pork and alcohol. Our minds are programmed that way, that even if we go to any Western Country first thing we look for is halal restaurant . But we see around us rarely people taking a strong stand against interest. Quite contrary we see people buying cars, furnitures and houses on interest based loans. So our minds right from the childhood are programmed to hate pork and alcohol but not interest.

Do we not know when the Bani Israel  transformed haram to halal they were transformed into apes…

Author : Nisaar Nadiadwala can be reached at nisaar_yusuf@yahoo.com