What does a person do with the interest from riba (usury or interest) banks?
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Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: A person has interest on his money distributed in a bank without his choice. Does he take this riba interest and give it to a poor person who needs it? Then, does he inform him that it is forbidden money, or what does he do with these differences?
Answer:
The scholars (may Allah have mercy on them), such as Ibn Taymiyyah and others, discussed this and said: If a person repents from riba (usury or interest)—a person who dealt in riba and then repented, and he has accumulated wealth from riba—he must get rid of it by placing it in public projects. Not as charity, but as lost wealth that he has no right to, so that he may get rid of it. As for the riba money that he did not take possession of, which is in the banks or in the hands of people, he leaves it and does not take it, thereby escaping its evil.[Al-Baqarah 2:279] If they have riba debts owed to them by people, or if there is riba in the banks, he turns to Allah. If he does not take it and does not accept it,
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: A person has interest on his money distributed in a bank without his choice. Does he take this riba interest and give it to a poor person who needs it? Then, does he inform him that it is forbidden money, or what does he do with these differences?
Answer:
The scholars (may Allah have mercy on them), such as Ibn Taymiyyah and others, discussed this and said: If a person repents from riba (usury or interest)—a person who dealt in riba and then repented, and he has accumulated wealth from riba—he must get rid of it by placing it in public projects. Not as charity, but as lost wealth that he has no right to, so that he may get rid of it. As for the riba money that he did not take possession of, which is in the banks or in the hands of people, he leaves it and does not take it, thereby escaping its evil.
But if you repent, you may have your principal - [thus] you do no wrong, nor are you wronged.
وَإِن تُبْتُمْ فَلَكُمْ رُءُوسُ أَمْوَالِكُمْ لَا تَظْلِمُونَ وَلَا تُظْلَمُونَ
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، ماذا يصنع الإنسان في فوائد البنوك الربوية؟ لمعالي الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.