Such is the time in which we are living, and until a new civilization is evolved which is based on morality and the sympathy of man for man, some solution has to be sought for the great economic questions which confront the Muslim nations. In the forefront of all these questions is the modern banking system. Is this system in conformity with Quranic law which prohibits ribā? Usury is undoubtedly universally condemned today, though it is still rampant in some places and has demoralized both the lenders and the borrowers, but the banking system with its legalization of interest is looked upon as a necessary condition of economic life and in the prevailing conditions this seems to be unavoidable. Not only Muslims living under non-Muslim governments cannot avoid it but even Muslim states seem to be driven to the necessity of employing it. Take only the question of trade, which is, today, no longer a national but an international concern, and it will be found that it is entirely dependent on the banking system. Now the banking system, if it had to be evolved anew, could have been based on a co-operative system in which capital and labour should be sharers in profit as well as in loss; but, as it is, the modern banking system favours capitalism and the amassing of wealth instead of its distribution. For whatever its defects, it is there, and the dust of ribā overtakes the man who does not swallow it, as the ḥadīth says.
The question of deposits in banks, on which interest is payable, seems to be more or less like the question of trade, a necessity of modern world conditions, which cannot be avoided. The bank receives the deposits not as a borrower but as a trustee, where money is safe and may be withdrawn in need. But at the same time it does not allow the money to lie idle, and draws some profit from it, the major portion of which again comes in the shape of interest. Out of this profit, the bank pays a certain amount to the depositors, the rate of which depends generally on the economic conditions prevailing in the country concerned, or in the world at large. It does not make over the entire profit either to the shareholders or to the depositors, but