Mediating Purity: Money, Usury and Interest, and Ethical Anxiety in Morocco

In this paper, I first argue that debates over what constitutes riba (usury) and interest engender what I call "the anxiety over ethical and spiritual purity." Second, I contend that this anxiety also reveals how some people are "forced" into financial bricolage to recalibrate the principles of Islamic ethics and morality with the ambiguous realities of everyday life and western banking. Finally, I claim that the concept of riba embodies an elaborating symbol and provides an example of how ethical and devotional purity imperatives mediate monetary practices and seek to create symbolically consistent social orders.