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214chapter four…but God has permitted trade and forbidden usury ( Al-Baqara2:275)The answer is given in verse 276 that immediately follows:God will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deedsof charity; for He loves not creatures ungrateful and wicked. ( Al-Baqara2:276)We understand that 2:276 prohibits the payment of interest onmoney given in charity but allows recipients of charity to earn incomethrough trade. In 2:275, Allah thus ‘permitted trade’ for recipientsof charity but forbade charging interest on the money they receivethrough charity. In other words, while profit through trade is allowed,profit through charity is forbidden. It must not be understood, ascan frequently be heard, that, through 2:275, Allah has allowed alltypes of trade while forbidden all types of interest. Such an unqualifiedstatement would imply that, before Allah’s revelation concerningtrade and interests all trade was forbidden and all types of interestwere allowed which would, of course, be historically untrue andeconomically absurd. Instead, Allah wanted to clarify the position ofthe recipients of charity.If He had not allowed people to trade with profit we would be ina grotesque situation in which every businessman ought to checkwhether his trade partners are entitled to charity or not; if so, thepartnership would have to cease immediately. In order to avoid suchchaotic and counterproductive trade arrangements and to separatetrade from charity, verse 2:275 was revealed. This had a huge impacton society since it allowed welfare organisations, hospitals, charitybanks, mental institutions, old people’s homes, and such to receivecharity money regardless of their commercial and financial activities.If we look at the existing fiscal arrangements in most countries ofthe world we see how it corresponds best to the human disposition( al-fiãra).We conclude this chapter by discussing the main differencesbetween our proposed theory of limits and conventional fiqhjurisprudence:We do not treat the legal verses of1. the Book as codified law but assignposts or ethic al-legal markers that Allah asked human beingsnot to overstep. Traditional fiqh jurisprudence has regarded the