Explanation of the Hadith: “May Allah curse the Jews; He forbade them to eat fats”

The Shaykh : The second example will bring the subject closer to you. There is a hadith in the Sahih in which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: What is the meaning of this hadith? First, the hadith refers to a text in the Noble Qur'an, which is the saying of the Exalted and Majestic: Allah forbade the Jews the good things that had been made lawful for them. What are these good things that were forbidden to them because of their wrongdoing? It is the fats. So when Allah the Exalted permitted them to eat the slaughtered animals, and they used to eat them with their fat and meat, our Lord the Exalted punished them for their wrongdoing by forbidding them the fat, while leaving the red meat for them as it originally was. The Jews did not endure this new ruling. What did they do? They resorted to deception. They took the fat and put it in the pots, and they lit a fire underneath them, so it took on a new form. However, its taste, its oil, and its chemical composition remained as they were in the creation of Allah the Exalted. The only thing that changed was the form. So, because of changing this form, they considered it permissible to sell it and to eat its price. And the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Therefore, Islam, in the greatness of its legislation, does not look at the form, but rather looks at the substance. So if Allah the Exalted forbade riba (usury or interest) because it involves exploiting the need of the needy, then whether this exploitation is direct through a loan and repayment, or through introducing the form of a sale—and I say the form of a sale because the reality is the form of a sale; because the bank is not a merchant—and I am going to return now to another issue that is closely related to what we are currently discussing, so that we may know what the Islamic bank has done in all the lands of the world today? They have taken the place of the merchant or the place of the company. The company sells at two prices: cash and installment. This sale must be understood: is it prescribed or is it not prescribed? If it becomes clear to us through the texts of the Shari'ah that this sale, the sale of installments in exchange for an increase, is a prescribed sale, then we will know that the action of this bank is not prescribed, a fortiori.