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﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

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What is the Shari'ah response to one who says, "I am compelled to deposit my money in the bank"?

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Then I am surprised by this logic: where does this rich man take his money? My brother, does this rich man raise a flag and place it on the roof of his house, with large letters written on it saying, "Here is a lot of money, in the millions, so come, you thieves and robbers, it is located in such-and-such a place"? No one does this. So why do these people take as an excuse that they fear their money will be stolen? Does he announce where his money is? But this is what Satan suggests and whispers to the children of Adam: "If you place your money in a certain place, the thieves will take control of it, so deposit it in the bank." This is said to be an excuse worse than a sin. If a Muslim takes a material means to preserve his money, and adds to that his faith in Allah the Exalted, his Lord, he will live with a peaceful mind and a tranquil heart, unlike these disbelievers and their like among the Muslims who are weak in faith, who imitated the disbelievers, about whom Allah the Exalted said:
(124) And whoever turns away from My remembrance - indeed, he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind." (125) He will say, "My Lord, why have you raised me blind while I was [once] seeing?" (126) [Allah] will say, "Thus did Our signs come to you, and you forgot them; and thus will you this Day be forgotten." ومن أعرض عن ذكري فإن له معيشة ضنكا ونحشره يوم القيمة أعمى قال رب لم حشرتني أعمى وقد كنت بصيرا قال كذلك أتتك آياتنا فنسيتها وكذلك اليوم تنسى
[Taha 20:124-126]
... So when the verse comes to the Muslim,
And whoever fears Allah - He will make for him a way out (3) And will provide for him from where he does not expect. ومن يتق الله يجعل له مخرجا ويرزقه من حيث لا يحتسب
[At-Talaq 65:2-3]
... that is his affair; the affair of the disbeliever who does not believe in this verse, neither with heart faith nor practical faith. The Muslim may believe that this is the word of Allah and that it is true, but he does not respond to it or interact with it. So what did he benefit from this faith? He did not benefit from it at all. Therefore, the Muslim must take the permissible means and then place his reliance on the Lord of lords. It is absolutely not of this kind for the rich man to deposit his money in the bank, so that we then ask what he does with the profits they call by a name other than their true name. You must pay attention to this fact: riba is called "profit." This naming is forbidden because it changes the reality of the Shari'ah ruling. "Profit" is a soft word that suggests to the person that this gain which came to him by way of riba from the bank is a benefit; but it is riba. And riba, as the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
The end of riba is to a little. عاقبة الربا إلى قل
. The outcome of riba is that it decreases, meaning that instead of growing and increasing, it decreases and diminishes, the opposite of what you see with these people. Therefore, it is not permissible for a Muslim to deposit his money in the bank for any reason whatsoever; because, as we said, "the end does not justify the means." And as the old Arab poet said:
"Sa'd drove them in, and Sa'd was wrapped up. This is not, O Sa'd, how camels are driven in."
The Muslim must fear Allah the Exalted in his money, and take the Shari'ah means to preserve it, and place his reliance on Allah, his Lord, Blessed and Exalted is He. When he does this, he will be in no need of the bank in its entirety. Then the question you raised in your first question does not arise: is it permissible for him to take these ribawi amounts they call profits and pay them as taxes to the government? The one who does this makes two mistakes. The first mistake is that he justifies for himself depositing his money to take riba from it. The second mistake is that he pays the forbidden with the forbidden. These taxes are "makus" in the Arabic language, makus, and there is no makus in Islam. So he pays the haram with the haram, and this is not permissible in Islam. Therefore, we can never justify, first, for the Muslim, no matter what his circumstances and conditions are, to deposit his money in the bank to take riba on it, and then to spend this riba in paying the obligations imposed on him unjustly, which are the taxes. Neither this nor that is permissible in the religion of Islam. So every Muslim must fear Allah the Exalted and preserve his money by the lawful means only. Yes.
The student : May Allah reward you with good. We know that Allah the Exalted ... and praise be to Allah. These taxes that we pay from our money, why do we leave the money and pay them in our country ... a lot, not just here, in some Arab countries, then something new happened: if a person wants to build a house, they take taxes for this reason, taking approximately the value of this house. Then we pay this from our money, and is it permissible to ...

The Shaykh : You are in your place, meaning you have not moved from your previous question, and this means that we would repeat the previous answer, and this is a repetition that has no benefit. Yes, meaning, is not the answer to your question that we pay evil with evil? Is there more than this? Paying evil with evil is contrary to Islam, my brother.
The student : They do evil, so evil with evil.

The Shaykh : That is why I told you just now
"Sa'd drove them in, and Sa'd was wrapped up. This is not, O Sa'd, how camels are driven in."
Meaning, it is not permissible for us to pay evil with evil; rather, repel with that which is better repel with that which is better ... this is the text of the Noble Qur'an. Otherwise, my previous words apply. If we do this, first, we have approved dealing with banks, and we have made riba lawful, while Allah has forbidden it. Second, this injustice that befalls us from some rulers, we pay it with this injustice that we commit voluntarily, not out of compulsion. This is absolutely not permissible. Rather, the Muslim must watch Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, and believe in Him with true faith. And this injustice, my brother, is not only with you; it is in many countries, even in the lands of disbelief. Perhaps you have heard that in Britain, for example, taxes reach eighty or ninety percent. Well, this is not only with you; even in the advanced countries they claim, like Britain, and they are disbelievers, they pay because they live in security, and so on.
Source www.al-albany.com

The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.

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