“If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as guarantee, you shall restore it before the sun goes down, for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as a cover. In what else shall that person sleep? And when your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.
Exodus 22:25-27
I had a "I did not know that" moment the other day while listening to an interview about home mortgages for Muslims. It turns out that a high percentage of Muslims in Canada are renters rather than owners because the Quran prohibits borrowing money which involves paying interest. While Muslims may have the money for a down payment and can afford a mortgage they aren't supposed to take one out in what we might assume is the conventional way. One person interviewed has an income which could support a substantial mortgage but has rented for twenty years.
There are organizations in Canada which enter into co-ownership agreements where one party eventually buys out the other, thereby avoiding the conventional notion of interest.These are termed Muslim or Halal mortgages, halal meaning permissable. From what I heard in the interview, this can actually be more expensive because of estimating the eventual value of the property.
While this may sound arcane, there is a strong Judeo/Christian tradition of prohibiting the lending of money or its equivalent, and charging interest, or high interest, on loans. There are several passages in the Older Testament, including the verses from Exodus 22 (above) which caution against taking advantage of others in this way.
Christianity followed this lead and beginning in the 4th century usury, charging excessive interest, was prohibited and considered a sin. A later Council decreed that persons who accepted interest on loans could receive neither the sacraments nor Christian burial.
Strangely, and conveniently, it was decided through the centuries that it was okay for Jews and Christians to loan each other money without violating the prohibition. It prompted the development of banking in which Jews became prominent and wealthy, and in dark times Jews were persecuted and killed for engaging in the practice they were encouraged to engage in by Christians. Sadly, today there are plenty of conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world's money.
I do have a form of PTSD from the astronomical interest rates of our mortgage rate in the late eighties and early nineties and I would heartily agree that this was a terrible burden for our young family. I thank God that the days of mortgage payments are in the rear view mirror for us but this is hard for so many today.
Was Shakepeare giving a nod to all this in Hamlet?:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true...
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