Part of the ‘punishment’ for defaulters, besides the monetary penalty, is explained by Hadhrat Mufti
Taqi Saheb as:

“...the defaulters are duly punished by depriving them from enjoying a
financial facility in future.”

This proposal betrays the capitalist attitude underlying the move to introduce
into the Shariah ‘punishment’ for late-payers. Hadhrat Mufti Saheb
has not presented anything original or new in his sug- gestion of developing
a system to penalize those who are unable to meet their commitments on due
date. He has simply borrowed from the capitalist ideology and has presented
it for acceptance without providing any valid Shar’i basis for his endeavour
to justify the riba penalty.

Relative to those who fail to pay on due date, the ‘punishment’ con-
sists of two elements:

(1) An interest charge.

(2) Blacklisting the debtor.

These two factors are precisely the constituents of the capitalist sys- tem
pertaining to ‘bad debtors’. Whenever a debtor is unable to meet
payment on due date, interest is summarily charged. If the debtor’s financial
position deteriorates, legal action is instituted against him. This culminates
in his name being blacklisted, published in court and other records which are
used by traders to determine the creditwor- thiness of clients. Once a debtor’s
name has been blacklisted, Hadhrat Mufti Saheb’s proposal, viz. punishing
defaulters by“depriving them from enjoying a financial facility in future”,
is ful- filled.

However, as mentioned earlier, Hadhrat Mufti Taqi Saheb has pro- duced nothing
new. He has merely introduced the capitalist system for incorporation into
the Shariah. The proposal of ‘developing a sys- tem to punish the defaulters’ is,
therefore, superfluous, to say the least. It already exists. It is not an original
proposal. It is an old haraam measure of the capitalist system. It is an old
hat presented in a different garb.

Although punishing a debtor by depriving him of enjoying future credit facilities
is not riba, it is nevertheless, the product of capitalist riba attitude which
in turn is the way in which operates the mental process of men driven to madness
by the touch of Shaitaan. And that is because they devour riba.

Neither does Islam permit riba nor does it allow the unjust, hard- hearted
capitalist attitude of depriving people from enjoying future credit facilities.
Late payment does not necessarily mean that a man is a crook or a fraud. Great
men such as Ambiyaa, Sahaabah and Auliyaa also at times found themselves unable
to pay their debts. The safety of Muslims against the curse and scourge of
riba is to restrict themselves to the plain and simple Ahkaam, norms and attitudes
of the Shariah and Islaami Akhlaaq.

The endeavour to ‘upgrade’ the Shariah by borrowing from kuffaar
economic systems primarily to satisfy the demands of westernised Muslim entrepreneurs
is most unbecoming of Ulama whose foremost obligation is to ensure that kufr
and its attitudes make no inroads into any Domain of Islam.