Prof. Abubakar Ali-Agan, an Islamic cleric, says Islam warns against incurring heavy debts and those who died with unsettled debts will not enter paradise.
Ali-Agan admonished the faithful against incurring debts in his Ramadan lecture on Saturday in Ilorin.
He described debt in Islam as taking a loan from someone or lending money to someone without reward.
He said that debt has no commercial value as the debtor cannot ask for profit from people but the reward is from Allah.
He observed that Muslims must change their attitude towards incurring and settlement of debts, adding that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) warned Muslims to beware of such attitude.
“Some people become arrogant after they incur debt and purposely refuse to pay. One of the most important things is to write owed payments down.
“It is decreed by Islam that every contract of debt should be written down by a scribe with fairness and no biases,” he said.
Quoting the Qur’an further, he said: “O you who believe! When you deal with each other in transactions involving future obligations in a fixed period of time, reduce them to writing; let a scribe write down faithfully as between the parties”.
Ali-Agan, also a lecturer at the Department of Religions, Faculty of Arts, University of Ilorin, explained that one of the most important things was to write owed payments down.
According to him, Islam discourages heavy debt as much as possible, because it has a serious and direct effect on a Muslim’s belief or conviction for it can lead to harmful consequences.
“In Islam, debt is an obligation that needs to be fulfilled. Islam takes the matter of debt very seriously and warns against it and urges the Muslim to avoid it as much as possible.
“Anybody who wants to borrow money from anyone, the person must be adjudged to be credit worthy.
“I thereby advised that if anyone died without paying his or her debt, the family member or friend of the deceased Muslim should pay on the behalf such debt.
“If the debt is not cleared, soul of the believer is suspended because of his debt until it is paid off,’’ he said.
The cleric, however, urged all the Muslim faithful to let their debts be known to others by writing it down or letting them know. (NAN)
