The nature of riba al-nasi'a and riba al-fadl

The author is interested in the examining the essence of the practice of Riba in its two main categories of riba al-nasi'a and riba al-fadl. While the problem of riba, holds the writer, is certainly present in the modern world, the focus of the article's attention is a historical one. Riba occurs in transactions of money and in transactions of goods as well. According to the author, Islam's early jurists set the two categories of riba al-nasi'a and riba al-fadl out of a desire to better grasp the concept of riba. Riba al-nas'ia pertains to loans of capital that involve interest over set periods of time. Riba al-fadl is more difficult to understand and involves trading commodities of unequivalent value by way of cheating one party. Some examples the author gives of this sort of riba are share-cropping, speculation, and trading unpicked fruit for fruit that is ripe. The author argues that modern-day Muslims ought to be attentive to the fact that early scholars divided riba into t