Usurocracy

We owe to Ezra Pound his coinage of the word ‘usurocracy’ from the Latin usura and –cracy, which latter is from the Greek –kratia ‘power, rule’. Democracy is the rule of the demos – the people, and usurocracy is the rule of usury. Note that there is no agent empowered here but a process. That …

The Collaborative Couple

A lecture entitled delivered in 1990 by Shaykh Abdalqadir at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. I took the title of “The Collaborative Couple” being moved by where in Qur’an, Allah, telling of people entering into the “garden” says, “They will come singly and in couples”. I felt this contained a great insight for us, if …

The Opening of Shaykh Abdal-Aziz Ad-Dabbagh

translated by Abdassamad Clarke Shaykh Abd al-Aziz, may Allah be pleased with him, said: Three days after the death of Sidi Umar the opening happened to me and praise belongs to Allah. We recognised Allah by the reality of our selves, and praise and thanks belong to Him. That was on Thursday the 8th of …

Equity

One hesitates to posit a basic principle of a just non-usurious economy since the history of ‘principles’ and most particularly ‘Islamic principles’ as interpreted by modernists, has been a dismal one. Thus, in their view, very wide principles, both usul and qawa’id, over-rule actual fiqh judgments. Bearing that in mind, one principle we might mention …