The Objectives of the Prohibition of Riba By: Elhadi Habbani

Riba al-nasi'ah:
Based on the definition of the Portal of General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "Riba al-nasi'ah is derived from the Arabic root "nasa'a which means "delay or "defer". This type of Riba falls into two categories: the first one: Charging interest on the loan lent to an insolvent debtor. This category was commonly practice in the pre-Islamic era. A person, for example, may lend another person a sum of money to be paid back on a specified date. When the date agreed upon is due, the creditor gives the debtor the choice either to repay the debt or defer repayment in return for charging additional interest on the principal. The Second one: Exchanging two items of the same type which bear the common cause of Riba Al-Fadl while stipulating deferment of delivery of one or both of the exchanged items. An example of this includes exchanging gold for gold or silver or exchanging silver for gold while stipulating deferment of delivery" . The term nasi'ah means to delay or to wait for agreeable time period consented to the borrower to pay the principal with its interest or to suspend the payment for another period against additional excess or interest.
It is quite obvious that the prohibition of Riba al nasi’ah in essence come mainly from the concept of fixing a positive return on an asset that, by nature, can't create value or increment as a compensation just for waiting some time which is not permitted by Shari’ah.

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