[Serereids]

OPINION by Fadeel Hassen - As an ex banker of 20 years, my core concern was always that we advertise our banking products as "100% Shariah compliant". I felt this to be misleading as I cannot comprehend how any product linked to the SA Reserve Bank (which all banks in SA must comply with as law), with its core commodity of trade being INTEREST, can ever be 100% Shariah compliant? It was for this same reason, over twenty years ago, leading to my inauguration speech as Vice President of SASBO-the finance union in South Africa, which I had said the current compound interest banks are going to collapse one day.

Less than five years later, Bearings Bank in England was the first to fold, much to the dismay to those bigots who challenged my prophecy, which simply stemmed from the spirit of the Quran. Moreover, often 'profit' is a term replaced by interest and as such "Islamic Banks" are virtually owned by riba banks such as, for example, Absa and FNB. These profits equate closely to compound interest....and so it is comparable to a drop of urine in a litre of zam zam water, isn’t it?

If these "Shariah compliant" banks had made a concerted effort to use their networking position of strength to develop their own infrastructure, devoid from being a part of the common commercial banks, its systems and the affiliation to the Reserve Bank, I would fully support its endeavours. But seemingly this did not happen during a period of over a decade.


There were no further endeavours to seek 100% purity in its financial and economic structures. Complacency in a comfort zone have misguided all attempts to claim they STRIVE to be 100% Shariah compliant, which would have been more reasonable than an imprudent attempt to claim “100% Shariah compliancy” in a system devoid of Islam (Darul Garb or even Darus Salaam/democracy).


In my humble opinion, Islamic banking, in the SA context, can never be 100% Shariah compliant, or even least 'Islamic', for as long as the current banking systems are governed by what I call a 'plastic' economy, based on paper money of exchange (promissory notes). How does one justify what one owes when what one owes is intangible? This system of securitisation cannot be made Islamic!


The chickens have now come home to roost with the only benefit being that 49million South Africans have been exposed to the fact that Islam has an economic plan in its belief system. Let’s hope our religious/spiritual "leaders" and economic "pioneers" have the visionary leadership to advance the cause of Islamic banking to the next level. A good start is to develop indigenous Islamic systems and infrastructure by restructuring loan advances on what we own and not what we claim to own on paper, i.e. on REAL MONEY. Do we have the vision? Only time will judge our legacy of history again.

We will also watch with bated breath how banks will collapse one by one, since the start of Bearing Bank in the time of a flourishing economy. Riba operated Banks WILL collapse sooner or later, if we claim the Quran to be a faultless Furqaan. Now ponder on Surah 2, verse 275. “Those who eat Ribâ (usury) will not stand (on the Day of Resurrection) except like the standing of a person beaten by Shaitân (Satan) leading him to insanity. That is because they say: "Trading is only like Ribâ (usury)," whereas Allâh has permitted trading and forbidden Ribâ (usury).

So whosoever receives an admonition from his Lord and stops eating Ribâ (usury) shall not be punished for the past; his case is for Allâh (to judge); but whoever returns [to Ribâ (usury)], such are the dwellers of the Fire - they will abide therein”. Meanwhile, we pray for guidance and forgiveness from Allah for declaring war with Him, in justifying riba as a halaal commodity of trade in a boiling volcanic pot of haraam.