Ibn Rushd, full name Abul-Waleed Muhammad Ibn Rushd, is an Andalusian Muslim scholar. He is also known as “Ibn us Din” or “Averroes”. He is one of the well known and most influential Muslim scholars. He was a theologian, philosopher, jurist and contributed so much to Islamic economic thinking.
He was born at the year of 1126 at Cordoba and died at the year of 1198 at Marrakesh.
Throught his life; he wrote more than 70 books; more than 25,000 pages in total.
The aim of this article is to explain some views of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) on economy and economic issues; how He handled this topic?
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As a complete scholar; Ibn Rushd wrote various of subjects; ranging from astronomy to psychology; politics to music.
Views of Ibn Rushd on economic issue; “Concept of Usury” could be summed up like this;
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Concept of Usury : Interest of surplus (riba al-fadl) is one that appears as an ‘objectively measurable quantitative surplus’ in one of the exchanged items of the same kind -as in the case when two measures of corn is exchanged for three measures of corn, even if it is due to the difference of quality.
This type of usury appears as a quantitative surplus in one of the exchanged goods of the same kind -as in the case when two measures of corn is exchanged for three measures of corn, even if it is due to the difference of quality. And the other is called interest of delay or deferral (riba al-nasia in Arabic) that appears in exchanges as a quantitative or potential surplus (value differentiation) when the delivery of one of the goods exchanged is delayed, as in the case when a ton of iron is sold for the same amount of iron on a deferral basis; let alone for a larger amount of delayed iron.
Ibn Rushd mentioned Islamic economic thinking, notably the thought of usury; Riba in Arabic. He declared that Ibn ‘Abbas, a friend (companion) of Prophet Muhammad (pbuH), didn’t settle for Riba al-Fadl (interest in excess) as a result of, according to him, the Prophet had processed that there was no Riba except in credit.
However; this point of view of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) is generally not accepted by Islamic Scholars.
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