ربا، بهره قراردادي و بهره طبيعي (نقد مفهوم بهره در نظريات اقتصادي متفكرين مسلمان )

Riba vs. Natural and Contract Interest A Critical View Towards the Conceptualization of Interest by Muslem Thinkers

In the age of capitalistic production, capital plays a vital role in the economic life. Considering the concept of capital, the concept of interest stands out. The purpose of this paper is to make a crirical survey of the image of interest in the view of Muslem scholars. The problem of interest is the descriptive and theoretical analysis of the income obtained from capital. The main question, posed in this respect, is what Muslem thinkers do contribute to the scientific exposition of the essence of this income. To realize such a contribution, we have compared the Muslem thinkers attitudes towards interest with the prevailing explanations in the capitalistic literature. The conclusion would be that The concept of interest in the view of Muslem Thinkers is no more than the contractual interest fixed in loan contracts. The contractual interest in loans is regarded as the obvious exercise of Riba; which is strongly prohibited in Islam. This attitude is so dominated that the bulk of Islamic writings has targeted money, rather than capital, as the fundamental concept related to the problem of interest. However, to solve the problem of interest, a new paradigm would be trying to alter the conceptualization of money by an alternative theory of capital which substitutes natrual interest for contract interest. If so; it would be found out that there is no difference between interest and profit in essence. In economic world, profit can not come into existence if the ex ante natural rate of interest is omitted. Nevertheless, with resort to the concept of natural rate of interest, the economic raison dʹetre of all kinds of contract interests can be explained and many controversies regarding the fundamental concept of interest, which are held between Islamic ideals and conventional practices, can be settled down.