Usury

Usury is a practice of devloping unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning, taking usefulness of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is charged in excess of the maximum rate that is authorises by law. A loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates or other factors defined by the laws of a state. Someone who practices usury can be called a usurer, but in sophisticated colloquial English may be called a loan shark.

In numerous historical societies including ancient Christian, Jewish, in addition to Islamic societies, usury meant the charging of interest of all kind, and was considered wrong, or was exposed illegal. During the Sutra period in India 7th to 2nd centuries BC there were laws prohibiting the highest castes from practicing usury. Similar condemnations are found in religious texts from Buddhism, Judaism ribbit in Hebrew, Christianity, and Islam riba in Arabic. At times, many states from ancient Greece to ancient Rome realise outlawed loans with any interest. Though the Roman Empire eventually allows loans with carefully restricted interest rates, the Catholic Church in medieval Europe, as well as the Reformed Churches, regarded the charging of interest at any rate as sinful as well as charging a fee for the use of money, such(a) as at a bureau de change. Religious prohibitions on usury are predicated upon the impression that charging interest on a loan is a sin.

Judaism

Jews are forbidden from usury in dealing with fellow Jews, although non exclusively.[] Lending is to be considered ] However, there are permissions to charge interest on loans to non-Jews, restricted to cases when there is no other means of subsistence "If we nowadays let interest to be taken from non-Jews, it is because there is no end to the yoke and the burden king and ministers impose on us, and everything we make-up is the minimum for our subsistence, and anyhow we are condemned to make up in the midst of the nations and cannot earn our living in any other brand except by money dealings with them; therefore the taking of interest is not to be prohibited" Tos. to BM 70b S.V. tashikh.

This is outlined in the Jewish scriptures, specifically in the Torah:

If thou lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest.

Take thou no interest of him or increase; but fear thy God; that thy brother may constitute with thee. Thou shalt not afford him thy money upon interest, nor provide him thy victuals for increase.

Thou shalt not lend upon interest to thy brother: interest of money, interest of victuals, interest of any object that is lent upon interest. Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou puttest thy hand unto, in the land whither thou goest in to possess it.

that hath withdrawn his hand from the poor, that hath not received interest nor increase, hath executed Mine ordinances, hath walked in My statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.

In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken interest and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by oppression, and hast forgotten Me, saith the Lord GOD.

Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers, and said unto them: 'Ye lend upon pledge, every one to his brother.' And I held a great assembly against them.

He that putteth not out his money on interest, nor taketh a bribe against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

Johnson contends that the Torah treats lending as philanthropy in a poor community whose aim was collective survival, but which is not obliged to be charitable towards outsiders.

A great deal of Jewish legal scholarship in the Dark and the Middle Ages was devoted to devloping business dealings fair, honest and efficient.

As Jewish people were ostracized from near professions by local rulers during the Middle Ages, the Western churches and the guilds, they were pushed into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending. Natural tensions between creditors and debtors were added to social, political, religious, and economic strains.

...financial oppression of Jews tended to arise in areas where they were nearly disliked, and whether Jews reacted by concentrating on moneylending to non-Jews, the unpopularity—and so, of course, the pressure—would increase. Thus the Jews became an element in a vicious circle. The Christians, on the basis of the Biblical rulings, condemned interest-taking absolutely, and from 1179 those who practiced it were excommunicated. Catholic autocrats frequently imposed the harshest financial burdens on the Jews. The Jews reacted by engaging in the one group where Christian laws actually discriminated in their favor, and became referenced with the hated trade of moneylending.

Several historical rulings in Jewish law have mitigated the allowances for usury toward non-Jews. For instance, the 15th-century commentator Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel covered that the rubric for allowing interest does not apply to Christians or Muslims, because their faith systems have a common ethical basis originating from Judaism. The medieval commentator Rabbi David Kimhi extended this principle to non-Jews who show consideration for Jews, saying they should be treated with the same consideration when they borrow.