Below is an excellent poem on the current economic model written by our beloved brother Tarek El Diwany. Please access his very informative website www.islamic-finance.com and make sure you read his book "The Problem With Interest", it is an excellent read. For more information and to purchase the book, please access this link: www.theproblemwithinterest.com/.

Those with deadened thinking glands
could not perceive the cheating hands
that Shiteman brought with words of silk
to speak of wealth with King and ilk
That they in need of greater rank
might throng en masse at Shiteman's bank
to borrow papers newly printed
(Shiteman's house had no coins minted)

In marble halls on leather hide
Shiteman sat at counters wide
to watch his clients sinking deep
in credit binges newly steeped
And only when the door slammed shut
did Shiteman's silken words turn smut
for debt collection came next day
with mortgaged assets under sway

Thus pounced the greedy leaden hand
while snoring Princes in their land
saw hard earned toils of ages past
fill bankers' purse through bailiff's grasp
Oh what fun that con to play
but Shiteman hid it well that day
for waiting patiently he found
the King himself had debts unsound!

And sure enough did come the grovel
from men of State in language novel
granting Shiteman powers new
in ways whose import struck but few
And by whose deed the King did borrow
sufficient more to last the morrow
till war did force him down at heel
once more in need of Shiteman's seal

Thus did power pass from Kings
and peoples' hands to stench filled things
that had no love for honest toil
and only lived by others spoiled
And debt repayment came to rise
above the Sun in most men's skies
and ruled by fear of repossession
the very soul of life's expression

By their menace lands would starve
three hundred years of concrete carved
and poison gas would swathe the earth
to cull one-half in deathly dearth
Who would have thought this of the world
when Shiteman's bastard bank unfurled
on paper slips a solemn promise
to pay in gold (though none was honest)

Protest oh children, while still young,
or has the debt tied up your tongue?
what, hungry now, too tired to speak?
but GDP was up this week!
Then die as data nicely charted
in glossy brochures finely crafted
that tell us much of worldly ills
but mention not the hand that kills

And manufacture disagreement
counting costs but not bereavement
plotting forward better times
though each year's graph shows downward lines
And knowing well that trap infernal
the cure unsaid in every journal
is that life for which we hanker
means the end for Shiteman banker