Abu Saeed Khudri relates Allah’s Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) as saying: “Do not sell gold for gold, except like for like, and don’t increase something of it upon something; and don’t sell silver unless like for like, and don’t increase something of it upon something, and do not sell for ready money something to be given later.”
(Sahih Muslim)
Whenever economic crisis raises its head, interest is proved to be the only culprit. With increase in the rate of interest, the margin of profit declines and the investor prefers to lend his money on interest rather than invest it in business and take the risk.
The ever-increasing growth of the interest-ridden economy is a conspiracy of the selfish and heartless moneyed class against other factors of production. Since in the modern industrial economy of large-scale enterprise capital has assumed immensely great importance, the capitalist has, therefore, managed to mould the whole system of production to suit his vested interests – the system in which there is always a “guaranteed gain” for him irrespective of the fact whether the business sinks or swims.
Here,the Messenger of Allah ﷺenjoins the believers not to eye upon the increase in money with the help of interest but to always think of an increase through profit.
Similarly, selling a dinar or dirham for more dinars or dirhams is forbidden because the exchange of two homogeneous commodities having different number, different size and different value is unlawful as it carries within it the element of interest.