Islamic Finance

Prompted by an article on Islamic Finance in the Financial Times: The US: Moves are under way to lower barriers. "Changes in tax law are being considered, says Aline van Duyn."

Many years ago I learned that the Church in Europe forbade charging interest on loans in the Middle Ages... and that Islamic law forbids it, still to this day.

My reaction then, as now, is that these two religious institutions agreed on the trouble interest and debt can bring upon society and agreed in their reaction against it.

In Europe, or so I have read (somewhere), the Church's rule opened the door for Jews to become Europe's bankers. And then, it seems to me, the troubles that arise from excessive interest became (in the practical but small minds of Christian Europeans of the time) troubles arising from Jews.

I'm not making this up. I'm just putting fragments together. Whether any of them are true, I cannot say. But lacking any other story, I take it for history.

It was Longshanks -- King of England in the Braveheart movie -- who expelled the Jews from England. Because nobody liked them, because of the banking thing. Centuries before Hitler.

Little fragments.

I know nothing of Islamic law. But Islam arose after the fall of Rome. And I can imagine that concentrations of wealth and income were far greater then than now, and interest was just that much more of a burden. And two religions had the same reaction to it.