The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) in Islam

A look at riba in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

Among the financial prohibitions in Islamic teaching, riba, interest, is addressed with a severity scholars describe as unmatched by almost any other economic matter in the Quran – language escalating across several revelations until it culminates in one of the starkest warnings directed at any category of sin in the entire text.

Riba: A Declaration of War

Surah al-Baqarah instructs those who deal in riba to give it up, warning that if they do not, they should “be informed of a war from Allah and His Messenger” (2:278-279) – language classical exegetes note is not applied to any other financial transgression in the Quran, marking riba out as a category severe enough to warrant this singular framing.

Growth That Does Not Actually Grow

Surah ar-Rum contains a verse scholars read as addressing the underlying logic of interest directly: “whatever you give for interest to increase within the wealth of people will not increase with Allah, but what you give in charity, seeking Allah’s countenance, those are the multipliers” (30:39) – drawing a direct contrast between wealth grown through interest and wealth given away in charity, with the verse asserting that true increase, from Allah’s perspective, runs in the opposite direction from what interest promises.

Equated With Fighting Allah and His Messenger

A hadith recorded in Sahih Muslim describes the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ cursing not only the one who consumes riba, but the one who pays it, the one who records the transaction, and the two witnesses to it, stating that they are all equal in the sin – extending responsibility beyond the direct beneficiary to everyone who facilitates the transaction, a scope scholars note is unusually broad compared to how responsibility is typically assigned for other prohibited acts.

Thirty-Six Counts of Adultery

A hadith recorded by Imam Ahmad describes the Prophet ﷺ teaching that a single dirham of riba knowingly consumed is graver than committing adultery thirty-six times – a comparison scholars cite specifically because of how shocking it is intended to be, deliberately measuring a financial sin against one of the gravest sins involving the body, in order to correct any tendency to treat interest as a comparatively minor, purely technical matter.

Why the Prohibition Is Framed Around Fairness

Surah al-Baqarah frames the alternative to riba directly: “if you repent, you may have your principal, without wronging and without being wronged” (2:279) – language scholars point to as revealing the underlying concern behind the entire prohibition: a lender guaranteed a fixed return regardless of whether the borrower’s venture succeeds or fails is understood, in classical Islamic economic reasoning, to be extracting wealth without sharing any of the corresponding risk, which is why Islamic finance developed profit-and-loss-sharing structures, such as mudarabah and musharakah partnerships, as the alternative it considers genuinely just.

The Six Commodities Named in Hadith

Beyond the general Quranic prohibition, a hadith recorded in Sahih Muslim preserves a detailed ruling from the Prophet ﷺ naming six specific commodities – gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates, and salt – and stating that when exchanging like for like among these, the exchange must be equal in quantity and made hand to hand, with any excess on either side, or any delay in the exchange, constituting riba. Classical jurists took this hadith as the foundation for an entire branch of Islamic commercial law, extending the underlying principle by analogy to other commodities sharing similar characteristics with the original six, and distinguishing between riba al-fadl, an unequal exchange of the same commodity type, and riba al-nasi’ah, the riba of delay, associated with the interest charged on a loan repaid over time. Scholars point to the specificity of this hadith as evidence that the prohibition was never left as a vague moral sentiment for later generations to interpret however they wished, but was given concrete legal texture early on, precise enough to be applied directly to real transactions in the marketplace of seventh-century Medina and extended by classical jurists to the far more complex financial instruments of later centuries.

Readers interested in this subject may also want to read about Marriage in Islam: Purpose and Principles. Readers wanting to verify the primary sources directly can consult Quran.com for the full Quranic text and hadith references.