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Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Zaghloul Al-Naggar, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on October 8, 2008.
Interviewer: How can we explain the global economic situation in light of the Koranic verse: "Allah erases usury."
Zaghloul Al-Naggar: Erasing means annihilating, and we see this annihilation before our eyes. Many people are committing suicide or are afflicted with terminal illnesses, as a result of the great losses they suffer by the hour on stock markets around the world. This is a form of erasure.
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The verse states that usury will ultimately be erased. Erasure means total destruction, which we are witnessing these days throughout the world, as a result of people's acceptance of the [usury] system, which does not please Allah.
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What we are seeing is a war waged by Allah and His Prophet, and no reasonable person can even imagine the possibility of remaining steadfast in a war waged by Allah and His Prophet.
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People have praised and lauded the implementation of the usury system in Arab and Islamic countries, although we know that many countries in the world have begun to acknowledge that a healthy economy is an economy in which the interest rates in the banks is zero, or close to zero. That is what happened in Japan and in many German banks.
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The United States and other countries must reevaluate their considerations and reexamine their past and present. They must realize that these crises are not only economic – the storms, the hurricanes, and the real destruction that threatens the US... The United States has a reservoir of magma under its volcanoes, which far exceeds what is needed to consume all of America in fire, and if this fire reaches their arsenals, which are filled to the brim with billions of tons of conventional and non-conventional weapons, the entire region will be destroyed. The diseases for which they cannot find cures, such as AIDS, Ebola, and others, are all forms of the divine punishment inflicted by Allah upon His servants, as He sees fit, as a punishment for the disobedient and arrogant, who defy their Creator, as a test for the good people, and as a lesson to those who survive.
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This is the beginning of the collapse of the capitalist system, just like the Communist system has collapsed. Allah shows us how the capitalist system is collapsing for the same reasons – because this is an unjust, oppressive, and tyrannical system, in which the strong exploit the weak, and the rich exploit the poor. This is an immoral and inhumane system. Therefore, this system will not prevail. In my view, what is happening now is the beginning of the collapse of the Western system in its entirety. This is a wake-up call for people to base economic institutions on healthy Islamic principles, and to begin to realize the truth about Islam and its advantages over other beliefs.
Interviewer: The world's leading newspapers have called to implement Islamic law as a definite means to overcome the economic crisis that threatens to bring down the world's stock markets. In your opinion, what are the advantages of the Islamic financial system over this collapsing system?
Zaghloul Al-Naggar: The Islamic economic system respects capital as a means of evaluating people's efforts and property. The value of this measurement tool must remain constant. Let's say I have a 30-centimeter-long ruler, but sometimes I use it as if it is 25 cm long, and other times as if it is 35 cm long – it cannot serve as a measuring tool. The Islamic system is based on the assumption that capital only grows when actual productivity grows, and decreases only with real losses. Hence, the role of the banks is to play an active role in investments, rather than just to borrow and lend money.
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When the tsunami occurred several years ago, some journalists asked me what I thought about it. I told them that it was a punishment by Allah, because all the natural phenomena in the universe are soldiers in Allah's army, and Allah mobilizes them to punish the disobedient, and as a test for good people, and a lesson to the survivors.
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I predict the total annihilation of the United States, as a result of the many injustices it perpetrates around the world. These are people who do not believe in Allah or in the reckoning of Judgment Day. The only thing they believe in is brute material force.
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I believe that the 9/11 conspiracy was hatched by US and Israeli intelligence in order to achieve many goals, especially to stop the spreading of Islam worldwide. Without it, the United States, which purports to defend liberties, could not have imposed emergency laws, with which it imprisoned over 3,000 Muslims since September 11, 2001, without allowing their families to visit them, and without allowing their attorneys to talk to them. The American scandals in the prisons in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan destroy all their slogans about the defense of human rights, liberties, and democracy. These are all empty, baseless words.
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