Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to describe ways money can be transferred among people and businesses, and to explain credit and debt and how they affect financial decisions. The museum offers two records from Islamic law: what a debt is and to what it attaches, and one way of passing a debt to someone else. Banks, cards, interest and the choices a borrower faces today are for your class to bring. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- F1.1 describe several ways money can be transferred among individuals, organizations, and businesses
- F1.4 explain the concepts of credit and debt, and describe how financial decisions may be impacted by each
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Who owes what to whom?
Draw a small diagram of a loan with two people. Label who owes and who is owed, and say what happens when the debt is paid.
What changes when a third person steps in?
Add a third person to your diagram. Say who owes whom before and after, and who agreed to the change.
Go deeper
Picture a debt passed from one person to another. The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence records that hawala is the transfer of a debt from one liability to another, with three parties: the creditor, the debtor and the one who undertakes payment 2 3. It says the transferor is the debtor, and that hawala differs from surety in that it releases the transferor's liability 3. Of debts in general it records that they attach to the debtor's liability, not to his property, except where secured by a pledge and in a few other cases 4 5.
Think about it
In a transfer, the record says, the first debtor is released. Who gains and who takes a risk when a debt is passed to a third person, and why?
Into the museum
- Hawala, the transfer of a debt: who the three parties are and how the jurists say a transfer is made.
- Debt (dayn): what a debt is, how it can be secured by writing or witnesses, and how it ends.
Try this
Read about hawala, the transfer of a debt. Make a before-and-after diagram for a transfer, with the three parties named.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Debt (dayn) in fiqh have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A debt binds a person. The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence records that a debt in the jurists' term is a binding right in the liability, and that debts attach to the debtor's liability, not to his property. Does a debt attach to a person or to property?
In your own words: what does Hawala (transfer of debt) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Passing a debt on. Hawala lexically is transfer; technically it is the transfer of a debt from one liability to another by offer and acceptance between two of three parties: the creditor, the debtor and the one who undertakes payment. The transferor is the debtor, the transferee the creditor, and the debt is the object. It differs from surety in that it releases the transferor's liability. Who owes whom after a transfer?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Mathematics
- 2. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.7336
- 3. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.7337
- 4. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.8314
- 5. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.8315