An Open Letter Regarding Usury Based DeFi

So you woke up in the morning opening your eyes, leave your bed few seconds later or might be an hour later if you have your phone near you. Imagine if you spent that night with the loved one. Enjoying life?

Now imagine if there is a bad thing going to happen to you in the next 72 hours. Would you go by your life ignoring it? What if you know that your town is on a possible hurricane route or that there is a big forest fire heading toward your home? Maybe enemy troops 20 miles away?

Those are some type of the bad news that you get from reading the news but there are other sources that warns about more dangerous risks. Those sources are very old. Some are 1400 years old. Some are 2000 years old and other are 3000 years old.

Why should someone believe in what such old books have to say about anything? well, we will get to this at the final section but let us see what they say about Usury

What religions says about Usury.

Judaism/ Old testament

If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. --Exodus 22:25

You can lookup more verses on this usury topic

Christianity

Lateran III decreed that persons who accepted interest on loans could receive neither the sacraments nor Christian burial -- Moehlman, 1934, pp. 6–7.

Islam

What is interesting about Islam is that book is now read and understood by millions of people around the world in it's original language and it was written in the life of the prophet of Islam and gathered in one book in the life of his successor. In Quran there is a challenge to anyone to be able to reproduce a similar

Whatever loans you give, ˹only˺ seeking interest at the expense of people’s wealth1 will not increase with Allah. But whatever charity you give, ˹only˺ seeking the pleasure of Allah—it is they whose reward will be multiplied.

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran

How to verify?

If you wonder how to verify any of this as true, well it's not very simple task but it deserve it. Christianity acknowledge the old testament, Quran acknowledges the bible and have similar rules on usury.

But what if you don't believe in any? I can't tell you about Judaism or Christianity but I can tell you how to verify that Quran is from God. How? It's a very simple challenge:

Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “If ˹all˺ humans and jinn were to come together to produce the equivalent of this Quran, they could not produce its equal, no matter how they supported each other.”

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran

So a challenge have been standing for 14 centuries unchallenged. Why no one have a created a book similar to Quran to divert Muslim from the real religion? No one can create something similar. Quran is considered a literally miracle.

Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot - Arabic Authors: A Manual of Arabian History and Literature, page 142

Here is another video that have some interesting facts about the Holy book:

Would it still effect me if I'm not a follower?

According to religious sources when you do a good deed even if you are not believing in revelation you will be rewarded for it but in this life. If you do a bad deed it will also added to your final balance.

How Bad is Usury?

Usury is considered one of the major sins.

Can I keep money I got from Usury?

No, you should depose it keeping your capital only. so if you loaned 100 and got 101. You should keep the 100 and get rid of the 1 from interest.

What could go wrong?

If words in those holy books were right, your income from interest will be unjust. So you may be happy that you got that money you may not end up spending it on what you want. You may get sick and spend it on treatment or to pay for a lower for something you were accused of. So such unjust income could be burned in expenses you didn't expect or you could just lose it or get stolen as it's unblessed money as punishment for your sin.

Alternative?

You can trade or get involved in a project with profit/loss sharing methods.