Islam and Forgiveness

The last two days I attended a conference on Forgiveness in Islam at the University of Washington.  Prof. Arzoo Osanloo brought tremendous resources together and better yet introduced scholars who will esteem each others work for the coming decades, each improving the other.

For my part I got a brief chance to discuss my particular interest with Prof. Moumtaz, and that is loans, debt forgiveness and usury in Islam.  I had some general discussions with Profs Turner and Barfield that were enlightening.  The fireworks were saved for last with Profs. Lemons, et al and Nakissa going at it over "conceptualizing the habitus".  Frankly, I am used to professors who get into it like that, and I welcome it.

I did form a question somewhat outside of my amateur study, and it relates to Prof. Osanloo's studies of the Iran experience.  Prof Osanloo related a story of lad to be hanged under a regime more "radical (in the positive sense of "at the roots") in which the family offended decides whether the murderer is to be executed.  Given what I heard from the other professors, let's have a case that is the Shariah version of "open and shut."  Two adults playing chess (nothing disreputable as Prof. Barfield noted) in a cafe, lots of witnesses, Farhad beats Ehsan five games in a row, Ehsan is angry and begins to denigrate Farhad, Farhad is not having that and suggests Ehsan should learn to play chess if he wants to win, it becomes a shoving match, Ehsan loses the shoving match and screams "I'll kill you.." Screams it again on the way to the kitchen, screams it again coming out of the kitchen with the knife (three times) and then Ehsan kills Farhad.  Mid-sized city, relations not too close and not too far, (as prof. Ben Hounet noted), a clear straight murder case.

Judge rules, clear case, Ehsan's life is forfeit.  Ehsan makes an abject apology, blames himself for having pride in his chess-playing, when his skill was a gift from God and so not only did he murder Farhad, he is guilty of blasphemy and deserves to die, etc.

The family is sad at the murder of Farhad, sad at the whole case, moved by Ehsan's repentance, and decides to forgive for the love of God (let's ignore the problem of blood money for the sake of argument).  And under the radical Shariah, Ehsan walks free.  (And following Prof. El Fadl, this forgiveness is sad and beautiful.)

My observation: given all of the talk in the conference to the status of the forgiven in a regime of forgiveness, surely one can appreciate that even a forgiven Ehsan, free to walk, has had a profound sentence imposed upon him: he is a murderer.  The Ehsan before the murder and the Ehsan after the murder are two different people.  From inability to find a chess partner to compromised marriage prospects, a murder conviction is no small thing.

In the recent, western experiment someone who has "served his time" has been rehabilitated and the legal fiction is "justice served."  It seems to me, in our system, this is an extremely expensive process that guarantees we arrive at nonsense.

Now, take the Ehsan case today, as I understood the new laws in Iran in the same case today Ehsan walks free out of the Shariah court, and into the state court where he faces an "Article 12" prison term of 3 to 10 years, under the recent, western european innovation that a murderer has offended the legal fiction of the state (my editorializing).

So my question is, in the "article 12" regime example today, just what does the state bring to the polity by imposing a jail sentence?

My thesis:  mixing polities only makes things worse, but rent-seeking is an eternal human endeavor.  The experience of Ehsan the forgiven ought to carry weight in the considerations of polity change.  Prof. Kanafani-Zahar highlighted stability problems with these hybrid approaches.

Radical systems are proven by the test of time, but are subject to prejudice or woefully misunderstood.  Under the Timurids Afghanistan was the world's California and Herat its San Francisco (my biases, but you take my point).  It seems to me the problem is not a lack of innovation in mix-and-match NGO recommended systems, but a lack of restoring what works.  

Now I am not proposing the world go Timurid, but in a place like Hong Kong where the state is near non-existent, Moslems practice Shariah, the Chinese see the deal broker, the Christians use mediating institutions, the Hindus have their system, and the Jews theirs.  In spite of a reputation for probity, fairness, independence and accessibility, the courts are rather unattended.  At the same time Hong Kong is a beacon of peace and prosperity. 

What little reading I've done on the Prophet I recognize as a merchant his esteem of freedom.  Instead of Weber's 1919 definition of the state as a monopoly on violence, settled in the West, perhaps Islam can organize states as "protectors of freedom", evident in the rationale of the prohibition on usury, a process which enslaves people.  I am sure there are other examples of freedom esteemed.

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Usury and the Catholic Hierarchy

All popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, priors and so on are sinners.  They will be the first to tell you that.  In what way do they sin?  Probably in the most mundane ways.

Is it possible they sin in remarkably similar ways?  Probably.  For example, the selling of indulgences was a widespread and lamentable practice.  It motivated Luther to divide the Church, and Pope Adrian confirmed the error of the Churchmen in a letter to Luther.

Is it possible that the Churchmen today are engaged in a similarly widespread odious practice?  Yes, we can see plainly they do in regards to usury.  Although the church professes explicit rejection of usury, the practice is widespread.

With remarkably little sophistry, the practice is given a pass.

Usury, the taking of interest on a loan, is strictly forbidden because it does harm.  It is expressly how the powers that be, the ones devoted to doing evil, aggregate the power they need to literally call the shots, advance the greedy agenda of accumulation, theft, misallocation, war and so on.

A loan, properly understood, is a charitable act if given outside of commerce, and a mutually beneficial act if given inside commerce.  Under no circumstances can any fee be attached to a loan.  One can argue that it is not a fee, or it is not a loan, or the world is different now, and such arguments offer widespread comfort.  So did the arguments for selling indulgences.

You make a loan to someone who is in a jam, and will be helped.  (You do not loan money to people who will not be helped). The charitable part may get intense if the party to whom you made the loan in fact cannot pay it back.  It becomes alms.  If you demand interest, you are exploiting someone in jam.  Numerically, most loans carry no usury, although the IRS will penalize the practice of no usury.

As a kid my parents would send me to the corner store to get “one pound ground round” and the proprietor would ring it up, write my family name on the receipt, and throw it in the till.  I never paid anything at the store.  Same at the drug store a block away. My father got paid once a month, and went in to pay his tab where he ran them up.  My dad gave his employer credit ( a loan - the time my dad waited to be paid), the grocer gave my dad credit, the wholesalers gave the grocer credit, the manufacturers gave the wholesalers credit and so on.  No one charged anyone interest (usury).

In 1971 the last vestiges of a gold standard were wiped out in USA, and this world disappeared into a system that shifted from human relationships to corporate relationships. All such transactions went through banks (credit cards) where interest could be applied and taxes mulcted.  We did this to win the Vietnam War, and to finance the great war on those in poverty.

Now you could take on debt unto the 3rd and 4th generation and pay only interest (with a tax deduction!) E Z.  Rare is the Bishop who could pass up a new cathedral made possible by the promise of interest on a loan based on collection basket projections.  This is just the modern version of an appallingly widespread abuse.

The Council of Trent was convened in part  to address the widespread selling of indulgences.  Selling indulgences was expressly prohibited already at that time, as usury is today.

But desiring that the abuses which have become connected with them, and by any reason of which this excellent name of indulgences is blasphemed by the heretics, be amended and corrected, it ordains in a general way by the present decree that all evil traffic in them, which has been a most prolific source of abuses among the Christian people, be absolutely abolished. Other abuses, however, of this kind which have sprung from superstition, ignorance, irreverence, or from whatever other sources, since by reason of the manifold corruptions in places and provinces where they are committed, they cannot conveniently be prohibited individually, it commands all bishops diligently to make note of, each in his own church, and report them to the next provincial synod. (Sess. 25, Decree on Indulgences)

Perhaps some day the church will issue something similar in regards to interest (usury).  “Dear Lord, give me chastity, just not right away.”

Sin makes one dull, and this sin has obscured a parallel that needs highlighting.

We all know the church teaching on contraceptives, which forbids the use thereof, for contraceptive violate the creative and unitive aspect of sex within marriage.

This teaching is lost on very many people.  What is the difference between NFP and ABC when the goal is the same?  While the subtlety is too fine for many minds, without culpability, no Bishop could possibly claim to be obtuse on this point.

Usury likewise destroys the creative and unitive aspect of commerce.  Investment in enterprise is to participate in some way, bringing together time and talent and treasure, to the benefit of all.  What mistakes are made redound to the people immediately involved.  What success they have is directly related to fine tuning their offer to the customers immediately at hand.  The outcome is creative, the process is unitive.  New and better is created, the new and better bring people together.

In a market free of usury, people with innovative offers find participants with time talent and treasure to share in the introduction.  Naturally these are small businesses who introduce a marginally attractive product or service, and over time, by means of customer feedback, ever improve their offer and thus widen the market.  They spawn imitators and at some point come to the attention of large firms that take the idea and apply large scale economies of scale in manufacturing, finance and distribution, among others, to lower the price to the point where virtually everyone has access to the good or service, with their own money.

This is the proper understanding of wealth, not how many billionaires we have, but how many people can access how wide a range of goods and services with their own money.  The market described above is necessary and sufficient to create a world in which that range is widest.  A world in which one can afford his own range of needful things is one of peace and prosperity.  No better guarantee of justice.

Usury is contrary to that creative process, that unitive process.    Usurers hate this process, and proscribe it with such policies as "get big or get out!"  

To loan money at interest is to asymmetrically advantage the lender.  He is able to accrue money and thus power that is exceptional.  Whether loaning at interest to someone in a jam, which is exploitative, or loaning easy money to someone with a winning proposition, the result is contrary to creativity and unity.

It is contrary to creativity because the easy money proposition collects time and talent that would be otherwise available in the market for projects closer to what customers want. It misallocates resources.

It is contrary to unity because the result is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, denying a natural distribution of goods and services.  The have-nots rightfully resent the haves, even if unaware of their own contribution to the problem, by paying usury.

The solution is not to outlaw usury, only to make it unenforceable, like a gambling debt.  Then the practice would wither away.  No sanctions for failing to pay interest, no debtor's prison for failure to pay a loan.

We will in time see a reinforced statement against usury like we did against selling indulgences at the Council of Trent.  This must occur, for the only alternative is the Church disappears.  There are no other options.  But since the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, it is only a matter of time before there is a Trent-like emphatic condemnation of the practice.

Let’s just hope the bishops get around to it before there is another split in the church.

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Important To Take Time To Hate Muslims

People are tiring of the failed wars in the Middle East, so perhaps it is time that they get re-animated about war.

I've written elsewhere of my doubts about the murder in London of the soldier.  May 25 I said:

There is a problem with the story about those murderers of that soldier in London.  The story goes the soldier was hacked to death.  If you look at several of the pictures, where is the blood from the murdered soldier?  There is none around the soldier. Certainly if there was a blood pool somewhere we'd be treated to a picture of that, for in journalism "if it bleeds, it leads." 

What eyewitnesses saw was the soldier hit by a car, and if you look at the pictures of the car, well, it looks like a fatal hit. Now comes an article

Murdered soldier Lee Rigby has been formally identified but the cause of his death was not confirmed by a post-mortem examination, police said today.

Drummer Rigby, 25, was hacked to death in the street in a horrifying attack in Woolwich, south-east London on Wednesday.

Well, wait, the second paragraph directly contradicts the first.  If coroner cannot tell yet how the soldier died, then "hacked to death" is a tendentious guess.

My luck had me marketing my "Islamic Finance" course the week after this soldier's death.  Zero interest in the course at several hundred schools.    Ugggghhh... well, in time Insh'Allah, my studies will proceed.

You'd think the authorities would be keen on getting the facts out.  Perhaps a season of "hate Muslims" is useful as USA and the UK begin re-arming al-Qaeda in Syria.  We live in such a curious world.

It is time to declare victory and come home.

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Tony Checks in From Napoli & Quotes A Saint

On Apr 18, 2013, at 8:46 AM, A.M. A wrote:

Translated this for free for you from the Italian while waiting in line at the pharmacy. You may use it as you wish ...giving no credit.

St. Anthony of Padua on usurers 

Ferocious beasts that pillage and devour

3 types:

The hidden ones who in infinite number slither in the shadows like vipers.

The more public ones who feign moderation and want to appear merciful.

The shameless and perfidious, wracked in vice, who in broad daylight practice usury as a profession.  It is these the devil will take onto himself for eternal damnation.

Tony

Tony,

I am reading Eugen Von Baum Bawerk on interest, a seminal 1884 work that he kept updating until about 1910, at which point it became the wareshed for keynes, etc, or modern capitalism.

He previews usury and interest and of course trashes the Church for supposedly inhibiting free trade, science, etc.  He notes that Italy was the last to accept interest (usury), prox 1800s.

Interesting, that.  From St. Anthony's time to Baum-Bawerk's time, what do we know about development and usury prohibition?  Well, the renaissance occurred under usury prohibition. And the Protestant countries after they allowed interest?    Well, shortly after the reformation things got so bad in the Northern climes that cannibalism was a pesky problem, while Italy continued to thrive.  Michelangelo vs cannibalism?  All right, that is too far, but Baum Bawerk's discrediting of Catholic countries is every bit as extreme.

And not to put too fine a point on it, the century after Baum Bawerk produced his work and it became the rock solid foundation of modern economics (capitalism) was the darkest, bloodiest mankind had ever seen.  And he should have noticed that 20 years before he started writing, the USA civil war was essentially fought over the spread of capitalism vs. free markets.  (The civil war was not more about slavery than WWII was about Jews).

The argument that strict prohibition by the church leads to backwardness (Baum-Bawerks own description) is ridiculous on its face.  Now, of course the Italians were no more faithful to Church rules then than they are now, which is to say, more or less.  AS St Paul said, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.  And certainly St. Anthony was observant, and he was commenting on what he saw in italy in his day.

Which is why I think it is nuts to have the state involved with the force of law.  We desperately need to approximate the anarchy of  12th - 16th century Italy if we want peace and prosperity.  The state, which the teutons used to replace the Church, is involuntary, which brings chaos unto cannibalism.

The church is a voluntary government.  Whose central sacrifice is eating flesh and blood, but starts and stops there with sacrifice.  After that, it wants obedience.  But it can only propose, never impose, obedience.

I'll use your translation...

John

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