The Call on Ribā in Sūrat Āl ʿImrān

Occasion: Transcription of an ʿIshāʾ khatira delivered on June 28, 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

O Allah, set right for us our worldly life, in which is our livelihood, set right for us our Hereafter, to which is our return, make life an increase for us in every good, and make death a rest for us from every evil. And cleanse us, O Lord of the worlds, of whatever has attached to hearts and bodies of filth or idle talk. O Allah, amen.

On this blessed night we pause with the words of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَأْكُلُوا الرِّبَا أَضْعَافًا مُّضَاعَفَةً وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ﴾ (“O you who believe, do not consume ribā, doubled and multiplied, and fear Allah, that you may succeed”)^[1]

The Place of This Call Among the Calls of Āl ʿImrān

The call before it: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا بِطَانَةً مِّن دُونِكُمْ لَا يَأْلُونَكُمْ خَبَالًا﴾ (“O you who believe, do not take as intimates those other than yourselves; they will not spare you any ruin”). And before it: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ﴾ (“O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims”). And before it: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِن تُطِيعُوا فَرِيقًا مِّنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ يَرُدُّوكُم بَعْدَ إِيمَانِكُمْ كَافِرِينَ﴾ (“O you who believe, if you obey a party of those who were given the Book, they will turn you back, after your belief, into disbelievers”). These are the calls of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān.

We have already mentioned what came in Sūrat al-Baqarah: eleven calls, all of which came as a founding of the structure on which the Ummah should stand. Āl ʿImrān, as we said, is the sūrah of maintenance of what has truly been built and of what the Muslim community has reached.

We began in al-Baqarah from the beginning: ﴿لَا تَقُولُوا رَاعِنَا وَقُولُوا انظُرْنَا وَاسْمَعُوا﴾ (“Do not say ‘Rāʿinā’ but say ‘Unẓurnā,’ and listen”), in which He teaches us to hold the source of authority sacred. Then we learned that this reverence requires patience: ﴿اسْتَعِينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَالصَّلَاةِ﴾ (“Seek help through patience and prayer”). And the first thing in which feet slip is the matter of provision and seeking it: ﴿كُلُوا مِن طَيِّبَاتِ مَا رَزَقْنَاكُمْ﴾ (“Eat of the good things We have provided for you”). And we moved along with this founding chain, which the Lord of the worlds intended to be like the pillars and walls that carry the Muslim society and the roof that shelters it, until we reached the point that the last calls of the sūrah spoke, in sum, about spending.

Spending that comes out from within the Muslim willingly, which he gives to people by choice, selecting those to whom he gives, and looks upon as his path to Paradise, not that he is the one who confers a favor, nor that it is a place of humiliation in whose sight he gloats or whose deficiencies appear at its sight. No, not “I give you, I put you in my debt, I show you favor.” This is a clean society, which rises to the level of conducting financial dealings between parties: ﴿إِذَا تَدَايَنتُم بِدَيْنٍ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى فَاكْتُبُوهُ﴾ (“When you contract a debt for a specified term, write it down”), a sensible and balanced society, which knows for every area its beginning and its end. So we are before a system that has been completed, and once the system is complete, the stage of maintenance begins.

Calls of Maintenance: Obedience, Taqwā and the Intimates

It begins with this: the obedience we learned in holding the source of authority sacred is owed to Allah alone, and remains for Allah and His Messenger. So the first call comes: ﴿إِن تُطِيعُوا فَرِيقًا مِّنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ يَرُدُّوكُم بَعْدَ إِيمَانِكُمْ كَافِرِينَ﴾ (“If you obey a party of those who were given the Book, they will turn you back, after your belief, into disbelievers”). And we tried to learn the secret of choosing the word “obedience” in particular: obedience is either by choice or by compulsion. If there is someone who obeys any of the People of the Book, then either he is convinced of what they have, and that is not the character of the people of faith who believe in Allah and His Messenger, because he knows that what they have is not correct in terms of belief; or he is compelled, and what drives you to compulsion except that you feel subordination? And the believer feels subordination only to Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and His Messenger.

Then came the second call: ﴿اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ﴾ (“Fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims”). And how do we realize Islam? By holding fast to the rope of Allah and not dividing. Then there comes to us a repeated call in which our Lord warns us against taking those people as intimates, so we moved from merely obeying them to their being dearer to our hearts, or closer to our hearts than the garment that surrounds our bodies. And we spoke about the word “biṭānah” (“intimates”) and that it is the only place in which the word came in this form.

The Call on Ribā and Its Link to What Came Before

Then we see ourselves now before a rule of transactions, that is how it appears: ﴿لَا تَأْكُلُوا الرِّبَا أَضْعَافًا مُّضَاعَفَةً وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ﴾ (“Do not consume ribā, doubled and multiplied, and fear Allah, that you may succeed”). However, I will pause with the verse in an attempt to link it with what came before, as we are accustomed. So what is the aspect of the link?

If there are forms of obedience, the first verse ﴿إِن تُطِيعُوا فَرِيقًا مِّنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ﴾ (“If you obey a party of those who were given the Book”), then a form of taking them as intimates, then the first thing they broadcast among us to deal by is ribā. So we match this with His words, the Exalted, ﴿كُلُوا مِن طَيِّبَاتِ مَا رَزَقْنَاكُمْ﴾ (“Eat of the good things We have provided for you”), and with the close of the calls of al-Baqarah, “from the good things you have earned and from what We have brought forth for you from the earth”^[2]. And in both places there are two lessons.

The first lesson, in the first verse: that my Lord, glory be to Him, teaches me that everything that comes to my mouth or ascends to my belly is from Allah's provision and not from me. The favor in the very causing of provision belongs to Allah. You are an engineer, for example; how were you able to reach this station and this academic degree? How were you guided to the company you work with? How were hearts guided to respect and appreciate you in the place where you are? How were you chosen so that this project or this assignment would be attributed to you? All of these are causes that our Lord causes, without any dispute, and were it not for the guidance of Allah, Blessed and Exalted, none of us would be where he is now. So matters are all from Allah, yet the Lord of the worlds pushes people, especially the community of believers, to work and to stretch out their hands in attempts at earning.

The second lesson, from the last verse: “from the good things you have earned.” For the equation is arranged like this: guidance from Allah and following the means, so that earning is realized in our hands. And there is a difference between kasb (“earnings”) and takassub (“seeking to earn”), as is not hidden from your noble knowledge: takassub is an effort of striving by a person to obtain what perhaps is not his, whereas kasb is the realization of this benefit in his hands in fact and his merely taking it. So our Lord says that what Allah has bestowed of provision He has brought about for you in your hands, this earning that you eat with ease. So if you spend from what you have earned, the matter is easy.

The Dining Table

And to simplify the matter, imagine you are invited to a table, so you strove and followed the means until you reached the place, and there is much food, and Allah's goodness is plentiful. You stretched out your hand to what you relished, and its taste is very good, so you took a piece and gave it to the one beside you, or you stretched out your hand to someone who is not seated at the table but standing there. Which is harder: to give him from the food that was laid out for you, general food placed before you, or to give him from what you bought with your toil, your labor and your hardship and obtained with great difficulty, and nothing is left in your hand but a single piece?

So our Lord likens to us what falls into our hands, even if we strove for it, as a provision from Him, Mighty and Majestic, and that obtaining it, however great its difficulty in my eyes, Allah made easy, so that it was for me kasb and not takassub.

If They Are Obeyed and Brought Close to the Heart

From here comes the equation: if I obey these people and submit to them and make them nearer to my heart and my soul, then I am stretching out my hand, breaking the first principles on which the foundation of society was laid; so I have moved from eating of the good that Allah provided, and of the good that I earned in my hands, to consuming ribā. And thereby I do not merely corrupt society, but I break the rules of the religion on which the structure was built.

And we have agreed that Sūrat al-Baqarah is a sūrah of building, and any violation of the constants of the building, that is, of the foundation, brings the building down on your own head. This is why the command and the likeness came there: ﴿الَّذِينَ يَأْكُلُونَ الرِّبَا لَا يَقُومُونَ إِلَّا كَمَا يَقُومُ الَّذِي يَتَخَبَّطُهُ الشَّيْطَانُ مِنَ الْمَسِّ﴾ (“Those who consume ribā will not stand except as stands one whom Satan has driven to madness by his touch”), and here we began to play with similes, dialogues and stories, ﴿ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قَالُوا إِنَّمَا الْبَيْعُ مِثْلُ الرِّبَا وَأَحَلَّ اللَّهُ الْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ الرِّبَا﴾ (“That is because they said: ‘Trade is just like ribā,’ while Allah has permitted trade and forbidden ribā”). Then He, glory be to Him, tells of the one in hardship and of granting him respite until ease, and that giving charity is better for you, then: ﴿ذَرُوا مَا بَقِيَ مِنَ الرِّبَا إِن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ﴾ (“Give up what remains of ribā, if you are believers”)^[3] Do you see the link? ﴿إِن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ﴾ (“if you are believers”). And so it is established in my heart, my self, my mind and my conscience that eating what is good and obtaining what is lawful are among the constants of the structure of Muslim society and its pillars and foundations, and it is realized only through it.

The Structure of the Verse: The Meaning of “Eating”

As for the structure of the verse ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَأْكُلُوا الرِّبَا﴾ (“O you who believe, do not consume ribā”): some people may come to us and say: By Allah, I do not eat from ribā, I earn from it and increase my balance and income by it, but the source of my food is lawful. Then the Lord of the worlds tells me that eating does not refer only to physical eating, but that obtaining money in the hand and spending it from the other side and its coming to be in your hands is expressed by the verb “eating.”

And ribā in itself is not eaten, but food that is eaten is bought with it; so it is as though we moved from the meaning to the tangible, so whatever is a cause of the result takes the ruling of the result.

Doubled and Multiplied

﴿لَا تَأْكُلُوا الرِّبَا أَضْعَافًا مُّضَاعَفَةً﴾ (“Do not consume ribā, doubled and multiplied”): fine, can we eat a small amount? He tells me: do not eat ribā at all. So what is the point of “doubled and multiplied”? That there is no ceiling for the human self. And the rule says the human self does not stop at a ceiling. What does that mean? No sooner do I obtain a sum than I desire many times it, then I seek many times that, then the zeros pile up behind the lone one. And when the zeros multiply, desire, fame, money and so on and so forth multiply in my hands.

Then the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, warns me: ﴿وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ﴾ (“And fear Allah, that you may succeed”).

The Door of Repentance, and the Difference Between Success (Falāḥ) and Passing (Najāḥ)

The hope sought by every believer remains realized in the souls and hearts of the Muslims, even if some error comes from them; then the Lord of the worlds says: even if some of you have become involved in the like of this, ﴿وَإِن تُبْتُمْ فَلَكُمْ رُءُوسُ أَمْوَالِكُمْ لَا تَظْلِمُونَ وَلَا تُظْلَمُونَ﴾ (“But if you repent, you may have your principal; you do no wrong, and you are not wronged”)^[4]. And the call remains standing for the people of faith, but for the one who has returned, turned back and repented.

Then comes the word “falāḥ,” which is other than the word “najāḥ”: ﴿قَدْ أَفْلَحَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ﴾ (“The believers have succeeded”), ﴿لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ﴾ (“that you may succeed”). Falāḥ is not merely passing the decisive point between you and loss; it is not like one who got 51%, but like one who got 101%. This is a “fāliḥ,” not a “nājiḥ”; the one who passes has gone beyond the mark even by a single mark, but the “fāliḥ” is the one who achieved the highest levels and took the lead. So when we speak of falāḥ we are speaking of a station like the station of the prophets.

The Ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah: “Eat of the Good Things”

And here we link what is before us now with what we mentioned in the morning, from the ḥadīth of the Prophet ﷺ on the authority of Abū Hurayrah: that Allah the Exalted is good and accepts only what is good, and that Allah commanded the believers with what He commanded the messengers, so He said: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الرُّسُلُ كُلُوا مِنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ وَاعْمَلُوا صَالِحًا﴾ (“O messengers, eat of the good things and do righteous deeds”), and He said: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُلُوا مِن طَيِّبَاتِ مَا رَزَقْنَاكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوا لِلَّهِ إِن كُنتُمْ إِيَّاهُ تَعْبُدُونَ﴾ (“O you who believe, eat of the good things We have provided for you, and be grateful to Allah, if it is Him that you worship”).^[5] So He, glory be to Him, wished to raise the level of the believer to the level of the messengers, who were singled out by Allah, Blessed and Exalted, with conveying the message.

So the merit of the people of the message is that they conveyed the message, and the merit of the people of faith is that they carried out what reached them, did not squander it and did not go astray, but it reached them and remained standing. Hence the people of conveyance were the messengers of the Messenger to those after them, then the messengers of his messengers, then the messengers of the messengers of the Messenger ﷺ.

﴿وَاتَّقُوا النَّارَ الَّتِي أُعِدَّتْ لِلْكَافِرِينَ﴾ (“And fear the Fire which has been prepared for the disbelievers”)

Allah, Blessed and Exalted, says in contrast: ﴿وَاتَّقُوا النَّارَ الَّتِي أُعِدَّتْ لِلْكَافِرِينَ﴾ (“And fear the Fire which has been prepared for the disbelievers”).^[6] So what is the point of mentioning the disbelievers here when we are speaking with the people of faith? And here comes what the scholars speak of as practical shirk, or applied shirk, or devotional shirk: that you believe in Allah and affirm His oneness in word but contradict His commands in deed, so it is as though it is a kind of shirk; you claim one thing and do another.

So our Lord warns us first with a tangible warning, then warns us with a moral warning: beware lest the Fire reach your body and touch you, and beware lest you turn from the station of the people of faith to the descent of the people of disbelief, and we seek refuge in Allah.

﴿لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ﴾ (“That you may be shown mercy”)

Then Allah says: ﴿وَأَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَالرَّسُولَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ﴾ (“And obey Allah and the Messenger, that you may be shown mercy”).^[7] And the choice of the word mercy here suits the setting of the issue of ribā; for those who deal in ribā deal to the extent that they exhaust people and weaken them, so they show mercy to no one: the weaker the customer, the more money they take from him. So there is no mercy in this field, whereas perfect mercy is what is in the Qur'anic context.

Conclusion

I will not take more of your time than this. I ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted, to keep us and you steadfast on His straight path, and to preserve us in what He loves and is pleased with for His righteous servants, O Allah, amen, O Lord of the worlds.

But in closing, before we go on, remember that after this verse come the words of Allah, Blessed and Exalted: ﴿وَسَارِعُوا إِلَىٰ مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ أُعِدَّتْ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ * الَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ فِي السَّرَّاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ وَالْعَافِينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ﴾ (“And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a Paradise whose width is that of the heavens and the earth, prepared for the God-fearing * Those who spend in ease and in hardship, who restrain anger and pardon people; and Allah loves the doers of good”).^[8] It is as though He has moved me from the mire into which my foot is about to sink to the station of those soaring in the skies, not by the mere claim of faith, but by attaining the stations through the true station within the whole of the character that the Noble Qur'an has ordered. I ask Allah to keep us steadfast.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān, verse 130. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The verse referred to is ﴿أَنفِقُوا مِن طَيِّبَاتِ مَا كَسَبْتُمْ وَمِمَّا أَخْرَجْنَا لَكُم مِّنَ الْأَرْضِ﴾ (“Spend from the good things you have earned and from what We have brought forth for you from the earth”; Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 267); the speaker uttered it in the transcript with the word “eat,” which is “spend” in the muṣḥaf. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 275 and what follows, and His words “Give up what remains of ribā, if you are believers” are in verse 278. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 279. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Reported by Muslim (1015) on the authority of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him); and the two verses are in Sūrat al-Muʾminūn, verse 51, and Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 172. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān, verse 131. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān, verse 132. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān, verses 133 and 134.