Even among Muslims there are many devourers of interest and other kinds of riba, but they are not progre­ssing. On the contrary they retard the progress of others by their heartlessness and exhorbitant charges of interest. Devourers of riba become extremely hard-hearted. The impurity of interest devours all spirituality of the heart and renders it like a stone or even harder than a stone, for in the words of the Quraan Shareef, water gushes forth from stone and rocks and boulders roll down in fear of Allah. But, the heart of man nourished by riba is cons­umed with lust, avarice, hardness, cruelty and a host of other contemptible qualities. A devourer of interest is despicable in the eyes of man, for he is regarded as a blood-sucker, a parasite. And, in the Eyes of Allah he is regarded as a man driven to insanity by the influence of shaitaan, hence the Queaan-e-Hakeem declares:

“Those who devour riba, do not stand but like one who has become insane by the touch of shaitaan.”

Can consumers of interest now be on progress and devel­opment?

A Muslim does not measure progress in terms of abun­dance of wealth and material possessions. Devourers of interest may have huge bank balances and huge mans­ions. But their money is devoid of any blessing. In the majority of cases they themselves do not derive any benefit from their wealth and their mansions are mi se­rable, afflicted with many a domestic tale of sorrow and woe. At times they have all the wealth, but they are smitten with the calamity of diseases which banish the pleasure which they could have attained from their ill-gotten wealth. Such people have no time and no feeling for those in need, not even for their close relatives. Is this then success and progress?

They have no mercy on others. Their hearts are dry and hard. Their hearts never pain when seeing another in distress. Their hearts are like the hearts of lawyers and advocates. There is no profession more despicable and no group of human beings more contemptible and more heartless than lawyers and advocates. Lawyers and adv­ocates, in hardness of heart, meanness and selfishness, surpass by far traders who devour riba. This is so, because traders devour riba in only a limited way whereas the whole profession and the entire earnings of lawyers and advocates are haraam and riba.

In the final analysis, the wealth of the majority of devourers of riba is ultimately destroyed. How can they be successful when they leech on the blood of those in distress. Assuming that they do attain worldly luxuries and comforts, then too of what use are these when their eternal life of happiness and their Deen have been utterly ruined?