A Statement to the Public Opinion in Lebanon
Intellectual Bankruptcy in Proposing a Solution to the Economic Crisis
(Translated)

Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced in a speech – after the signing with the Minister of Finance Ghazi Wazni, on Friday 1/5/2020 - "We started with the first step towards a workshop to save Lebanon from the financial gap that is difficult to get out from without productive and effective assistance” – (Al Jazeera Net 2/5/2020), this is during his comment on the signing of an official request by the Lebanese government for assistance from the International Monetary Fund, expressing - according to the same news – “his hope that the request for assistance from the IMF would constitute a turning point in the downward path of the financial and economic reality”.

This is a foolish economic policy that was adopted in Lebanon after the end of the Lebanese war and the return of the state, a policy based on a surrendering view, which is the prior recognition that the trade balance is in a permanent deficit, and that this loss is compensated - on an ongoing basis - by the duality of "Zakum (pungent tree (in hell) and Hamim (scalding water)"; the first is external borrowing with interest, the second is by attracting internal and external deposits through usurious inducements.

First, the financial system is injected with an anesthetic injection of the external debt “Paris 1, 2 and 3, then Sidar…” It will (revive) the addicted economy with a cash dose from time to time, until its effect wears off with every new depletion of the stocks of hard currency, and thus the economy enters into vortex to turn off the flame with fuel, then cast the flame on the fuel!

Second, it kills the investment in the real economy, because the high interest rates (fa’ida) made the capital owners stop investing in production of goods enough for the local market, and strengthen the lira, or invest in surplus goods issued to bring the hard currency to the country!

Today, the country is adding the third disaster, the dealing with the International Monetary Fund, which Lebanese politicians are trying to portray as a savior, as if the International Monetary Fund is a charitable organization, which will spend from the money of the major countries on Lebanon to give grants without any re-payments, conditions or consequences!!!

Despite its notorious reputation over the past decades, and despite its failure to save any country in the past, the Lebanese state insisted to go to the International Monetary Fund to borrow $15 billion, which requires it to implement the laws stipulated by the IMF, including stopping state subsidies for raw materials, increasing taxes on people, devaluing of the Lebanese lira, or stopping the exchange rate stabilization policy, which leads to a loss of the value of the lira by more than 57%, according to the paper approved by the government, and all of this will naturally exacerbate poverty between common people, the poverty of which has become apparent; the US dollar rose against the lira to reach about 4400 lira per dollar, then returned and fell to 3550 after the dollar before 17/10/2019 was equivalent to 1508 lira per dollar; a decline that led to people losing the value of their monthly wages and their pensions.

The course of the failed power has become clear! But then what? Will the solutions offered by people and their movement remain in the same closed circle that is based on the system and the group themselves?

After the movement of 17/10/2019, a realization of important facts among the people was established: that Lebanon is a plundered country by the political class, whose wealth is lost due to the corrupt, and the bankrupt or almost bankrupt. This is a step forward in looking at the state, and rejecting its traditional faces that Lebanon inherited after the effects of the war. However, people still seem to have not yet realized that what they are in is not only because of physical bankruptcy, but because of the largest bankruptcy, which leads to their hardship in living. It is the intellectual bankruptcy, which makes the political class in Lebanon, whether yesterday's authority, or the authority of today, follow the same approaches, which because of it Lebanon was slaughtered from vein to vein, economic approaches have led - over the years - to a waste of public money, with deposits of funds, and made the debt a rock settling on the shoulders of the state and the people, without any glimmer of hope or light at the end of this dark tunnel!

Therefore, the mentality of this government, the so-called government of technocrats, only comes up (with a solution similar to the old), and all that confusion, self-replication and repetition of approaches, except due to misguidance about the radical solution from outside the existing systems, the systems exposed by the Coronavirus crisis, and shaken on all levels.

This radical solution is the divine solution, the solution that prohibits dealing with interest on all levels, individual, governmental or international.

[يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَذَرُوا مَا بَقِيَ مِنَ الرِّبَا إِن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ * فَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلُوا فَأْذَنُوا بِحَرْبٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَإِن تُبْتُمْ فَلَكُمْ رُءُوسُ أَمْوَالِكُمْ لَا تَظْلِمُونَ وَلَا تُظْلَمُونَ]

“O you who have believed, fear Allah and give up what remains [due to you] of interest, if you should be believers *And if you do not, then be informed of a war [against you] from Allah and His Messenger. But if you repent, you may have your principal - [thus] you do no wrong, nor are you wronged” [Al-Baqara: 278-279].

[يَمْحَقُ اللَّهُ الرِّبَا وَيُرْبِي الصَّدَقَاتِ وَاللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ كَفَّارٍ أَثِيمٍ]

“Allah destroys interest and gives increase for charities. And Allah does not like every sinning disbeliever” [Al-Baqara: 276].

At the same time, it makes money circulating among all people, not among the rich among them

[مَّا أَفَاءَ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْقُرَىٰ فَلِلَّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ وَلِذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَالْيَتَامَىٰ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ كَيْ لَا يَكُونَ دُولَةً بَيْنَ الْأَغْنِيَاءِ مِنكُمْ]

“And what Allah restored to His Messenger from the people of the towns - it is for Allah and for the Messenger and for [his] near relatives and orphans and the [stranded] traveler - so that it will not be a perpetual distribution among the rich from among you.” [Al-Hashr: 7]. And forbids hoarding

[وَالَّذِينَ يَكْنِزُونَ الذَّهَبَ وَالْفِضَّةَ وَلاَ يُنفِقُونَهَا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَبَشِّرْهُمْ بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ]

“And those who hoard gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah - give them tidings of a painful punishment” [At-Tawba: 34].

It is obligatory to release charitable funds from the pockets of those who possess the legal quorum (nisab), to the pockets of those in need.

[إِنَّما الصَّدَقَاتُ لِلْفُقَرَاءِ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَالْعَامِلِينَ عَلَيْهَا وَالْمُؤَلَّفَةِ قُلُوبُهُمْ وَفِي الرِّقَابِ وَالْغَارِمِينَ وَفِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ فَرِيضَةً مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ]

“Zakah expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed to collect [zakah] and for bringing hearts together [for Islam] and for freeing captives [or slaves] and for those in debt and for the cause of Allah and for the [stranded] traveler - an obligation [imposed] by Allah. And Allah is Knowing and Wise” [At-Tawba: 60].

It also distributes vast lands free of charge to those who want to invest in these lands in agriculture or industry, so that production increases and overflows and return to the people of the country with abundant goods. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab (ra) said in a speech on the minbar (pulpit): “Whoever revives a barren land, it is his, and the one who wards off a land, he has no right over it after three years.” Omar (ra) said it and acted on it in full view and knowledge of the Companions - may Allah be pleased with them - and they did not denounce it, thus it was a consensus.

Lebanon is a rich country in nature, resources, location, and professional cadres, but it needs a true philosophy that saves the minds before recovering the economy; this can only be through the divine solution, i.e. Islam and its solutions.

In this statement to the public opinion in Lebanon, we wanted to highlight, albeit briefly, the bankruptcy of all human solutions and remedies that successive governments in Lebanon are recycling and repetition, and we also wanted to draw attention to the divine ideology that will soon prevail in the world, Allah willing. Hizb ut Tahrir is working very hard to establish a single state, Khilafah Rashida (rightly guided Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood, under the banner of one Khaleefah (caliph), that Lebanon will be an inherent part of it as it was previously, implementing Allah’s (swt) laws in politics, economics and society, so that the citizens of the state, Muslims and non-Muslims, live in prosperity, guaranteed by Allah (swt) to those who live under its rule.

[وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ الْقُرَى آمَنُوا وَاتَّقَوْا لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِم بَرَكَاتٍ مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَلَكِن كَذَّبُوا فَأَخَذْنَاهُم بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ]

“And if only the people of the cities had believed and feared Allah, We would have opened upon them blessings from the heaven and the earth; but they denied [the messengers], so We seized them for what they were earning.” [Al-A’raf: 96]