CAIRO -

The controversy has returned again in Egypt during the past few days over the issue of bank interest, in light of the large sectors of the Egyptian people's demand for investment certificates with an annual return of 18%, which were presented by Egyptian banks by a decision of the Central Bank a few days ago as part of measures that followed the devaluation of the pound against the dollar. American.

The controversy over the bank’s interests was called due to the Egyptians’ desire to buy new investment certificates. According to local media, Egyptians bought investment certificates from Banque Misr and Al-Ahly Bank about 267 billion pounds in just one week (the dollar = 18.27 pounds).

Social networking sites witnessed an escalation of controversy between supporters and opponents, and each team won its opinion with the statements of scholars, advocates and previous and current fatwas.

With the escalation of the religious dispute over bank interests and the profits of investment certificates between absolute prohibition and absolute permissibility, and a third party considered that she was among the "suspects", the Grand Mufti of Egypt Shawki Allam intervened to give his opinion in the case, stressing that "there is no sanctity or suspicion in the interest of banks."

Allam said in televised statements that there is no prohibition in depositing or suspicious, because banking transactions are an investment in people's money, which is different from what was in the past, considering that dealing with the bank has nothing to do with a loan or usury, but rather an investment, according to his description.

He considered that the fatwas that forbid bank interest did not read the reality correctly, so the fatwa must be based on knowing the reality and being very familiar with it, describing the fatwas prohibiting bank interest as imprisoned in an earlier time.

The member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and presenter of religious programs, Khaled Al-Jundi, entered the line of controversy, considering that the interest of banks is permissible because it is not usury, because the bank does not deal with the poor and does not force them to do anything, but rather the bank is a financing agency, according to his description.

And the soldier, known for his support of the current authority, considered that the real usury, which is not disputed, is forcing the needy to increase the value of the interest if payment fails, attacking those who deny bank interest by saying, "God cut your tongues and I ask God to expose you to the heads of creation."

liquor theory

On the other hand, Professor of Comparative Jurisprudence Attia Adlan criticized the fatwa of the Egyptian Dar Al Iftaa on the benefits and profits of investment certificates, describing the sentences in which that fatwa was formulated as "very weak, rude and worn out," according to his description.

Adlan refused to apply the term financing to banks’ transactions, profits and loans, considering that the description of financing is neither a disciplined description nor a specific conditioning suitable for a legal ruling to be revealed to it, as it is similar to conditioning wine as a drink, and describing a dead animal as meat.

And in an article in Al Jazeera Mubasher in response to the fatwa of the Egyptian Dar Al Iftaa, Adlan saw that the correct description and adaptation of investment certificates is that they are loans with predetermined interest, and he explained this by saying, “The entity issuing the certificates is the borrower, and the person who buys the certificate is the lender, and the amount recorded in the certificate is the capital, The increase is the usurious interest, and the scholars have defined usury as: a conditional increase in a debt in exchange for a term, and they are unanimously agreed that it is prohibited in any form.

Adlan pointed out at the end of his article that eminent scholars and former sheikhs of Al-Azhar, such as Abd al-Majid Salim, Hassan Mamoun, Muhammad Abu Zahra, Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq and Attia Saqr, had their say in all bank interests, including investment certificates, as well as major jurisprudential academies, including the Islamic Research Academy. And the Islamic Fiqh Academy and the Muslim World League.

old quarrel

The dispute over bank interest and investment certificates was not a new thing in the Egyptian arena, but rather a controversial issue for decades, and one of the most famous who permitted bank interest and investment certificates was the late Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, who confirmed in a television interview that the benefits of banks are halal, adding: I said when I was a mufti of the Egyptian lands that the interest of the banks is halal, and the debt dealers attacked me and blasphemed me and wasted my blood and described me as a hypocrite, and that I was the mufti of the state, and some of them died and we will meet with God to judge between us.

Tantawi continued, "The days and research complex proved that investment certificates are halal, and every sane person says that they are halal as long as I entrusted the bank to invest on my behalf."

Contrary to Tantawi, the late former Sheikh of Al-Azhar Abdel Halim Mahmoud (1910-1978) saw that all bank interest is forbidden, and he said in a television interview: God said in his Noble Book, “God has permitted selling and forbidden usury,” and every analogy tries to bring out what God said Exalted from its context is a corrupt measure.

Among those who issued a fatwa prohibiting investment certificates and bank interest is the famous preacher and former Minister of Religious Endowments, Muhammad Metwally Al-Shaarawy.

Al-Shaarawy criticized those who solve bank interest under the pretext of the requirements of the age, and said, "It is absolutely not permissible for a scholar to say that we must live in the age, because this means that the age is the legislator and not the religion."

Al-Shaarawy sent a message to those who analyzed some forms of banking transactions in non-Islamic banks, saying, “We will respect your opinion for argument, even though the majority of scholars have prohibited the interest of banks, and since there is a group that prohibits and a group that analyzes, this means that it is a suspicious matter, and the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, did not leave the issue of suspicion. And he said, “The lawful is clear, and the forbidden is clear, and between them are suspicious matters. So whoever leaves something that is similar to him, then he has cleared himself of his religion and his honor.”

This is what the professor of hadith at Al-Azhar University and the former university president, Dr. Ahmed Omar Hashem, said, who repeated what Sheikh Al-Shaarawi said that there is a group that legalized the interest of banks as a new matter that did not exist in the days of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and there are those who prohibited them, adding in televised statements We stand in the middle and see that bank interest is one of the doubtful matters that the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, called us to avoid.