The Moral Benefits of Obeying and the Consequences of Disobeying the Divine Law Prohibiting Usury

The promotion of moral values ​​and refinement of souls is the purpose of the holy Prophet’s (p.b.u.h.) mission. To move on this enlightened path, one needs to acquire insightful knowledge about virtues and merits as well as moral vices and then internalize it in order to practice them. A unique feature of Islam is the irrefutability of such rules as the divine law which prohibits usury. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to try to understand the moral benefits resulting from obeying this divine law and the consequences of disobeying it. Such an effort required the collection of data from reliable sources, which continued until the saturation stage of the answers. The method used in this study was the qualitative method as well as the strategy of grounded theory. For data analysis, MAXQDA software (version 2018) was utilized. From this process, 184 open codes were extracted and put into 20 categories. Ultimately, the following 8 key dual codes were extracted and a conceptual model was presented: justice versus oppression, usury versus qarz al-hasnah, faith versus infidelity, being blessed with alms versus suffering loss through usury, acquiring halal (permissible) possessions versus benefiting from haram (forbidden) possessions, stability and balance versus instability and imbalance, God-centeredness versus profit-orientedness and the destruction of usurious society versus the revival of non-usurious society.